BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

ALWAYS AND EVER OUR MOST BELOVED BENEDICTUS XVI

Chère Teresa,

je suis très, très contente de lire de tes nouvelles par toi-même.
Peux-tu me donner ton adresse mail personnelle en m'écrivant sur mon site (beatrice@benoit-et-moi.fr)? Tu nous a manqué.
Bises
Béatrice (tu peux effacer ce massage, si tu veux)



Dear Beatrice,

Thank you most affectionately for the note and for your friendship. You would appreciate the feeling of oppression I have had all these months since our beloved Benedict gave way to someone who reads the pulse of the media-public continuum so well that he has become the sole reference point for all things Catholic, in the mind of what seems to be the overwhelming majority of those who have any interest in the Church at all - positive, negative or neutral.

It has come to a point where even going to the Vatican website has become an occasion of sin for me, because of all the negative feelings and thoughts that assail me by the very fact that Benedict XVI is no longer Pope and all of its obvious consequences... I don't know that I will ever work out this problem because there is a fresh aggravation everyday and it only gets worse.

This is certainly a gruelling personal trial I never even remotely thought possible, and that no acts of contrition, however fervent, have so far allowed me 'do penance and to amend my life' where this matter is concerned. Or perhaps the penance is having to live with all that I find unpleasant and objectionable about the state of affairs in the Papacy at the moment. But I cannot yet see myself amending my life to the point of feigning ignorance or indifference to what I find objectionable in the factual content of news reporting about the Pope. (I can deal with the hagiographical commentary, as nauseatingly prolix and ubiquitous as it is, but I cannot change facts - things that are unquestionably said or done. Leaving aside all the questionable statements, what about the demotion of the utterly unexceptionable Cardinal Piacenza from Prefect of the Clergy to Apotolic Penitentiary? It would have been infinitely kinder to simply allow him to retire because of health reasons - after all, he passed out due to a heart attack during Francis's inaugural Mass, and let me not read any omens in that.)

Just before seeing your post, I came upon this blog that expresses much of my Francis-problem in words far more tactful than I can manage but explicit enough...


Another Pope Francis
off-the-cuff interview explosion
BY STEVE JALSEVAC
From his blog on

Oct 02, 2013

Here we go again. Pope Francis has given another mayhem-creating, lengthy, exclusive interview to a major publication.

This one has especially caused jaws to drop as a result of him stating, among other things, that the ‘most serious’ evils in the world today are ‘youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old’.
Oh my!

What have so many been doing all these years, with great encouragement from past popes? Fighting with all their heart and soul the devouring, international monster of the rightly named Culture of Death. It appears now that their priorities were wrong. Or at least that is the impression from Pope Francis, even though we know he holds strong views against abortion and same-sex 'marriage'.

The hundreds of millions of unborn, and now other similarly vulnerable persons being murdered are apparently not among the most important issues in the world. Nor is the damage done to women from these abortions. Nor the deliberate, moral corruption of millions of children by the sex merchants allied with the population controllers and abortion providers. Nor the blackmailing and economic and other punishments of entire developing nations who resist the de-population elites.

Ok, maybe I am over-reacting. Once I start to read the flood of articles that Catholic publication writers are all again laboring on to explain what the Pope really meant by each of his disturbing new statements, then I will be re-assured. After all, he is the Pope.

There will again be: he “likely meant”; "his real intent must have been to show”; “obviously he did not mean this, and instead meant that”; “What the Pope really meant”; “I can only come to the conclusion that”; “ We may, I suspect presume that”; “We’re not even sure if the Pope’s words were correctly conveyed”; "Seems to me the Holy Father is saying"; etc.

Let me emphasize one thing to those who will undoubtedly jump down my throat over these comments. I am not questioning the fidelity of Pope Francis. I am not trying to undermine the Pope. I am one of the last people who would do such a thing. I agree with his strong emphasis on the high priority that must be given to personal evangelization.

But, it is very plain, from many, many comments from the very best of people, that we have a huge problem here. Pope Francis is saying too many things that could mean this, or they could mean that, but no one is really 100% certain. He is raising many disturbing questions that only he can clarify.

Some of the comments by Francis appear to betray a considerable lack of awareness of what is actually going on, and has been going on for years, in the developed world of Europe and North America. It appears that, to Pope Francis, there is no deadly, worldwide culture war going on.

As famed Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft has frequently repeated, "to win any war", one of "the three most necessary things we must know" is "that we are at war." He adds, "If you are surprised to be told that our entire civilization is in crisis, I welcome you back from your nice vacation on the moon."

There are numerous people working hard once again to put the best light or spin on these latest comments by Francis, as is naturally expected of them, since that is their job in Catholic communications. But why should they have to do this over and over again?

It is Pope Francis himself who should be far more carefully explaining to the world exactly what he meant and what his full reasoning was behind each of those confusing, controversial, very puzzling statements.

Then, we will know for certain (we hope) what he really meant. That is what Popes have usually done, but usually when they first make their statements. That is because their words are read and taken very seriously, probably more seriously than words said or written by anyone else on this planet. They are remembered, discussed and quoted - for centuries.

In the meantime, there are a lot of strange things being said and justified around the world now in response to what Pope Francis supposedly said.

For example, at my parish this past Sunday, there was an excellent homily on the angels and on the evil angels and Satan. Abortion was presented as one of the greatest evils in the world encouraged and applauded by the demons. Then there was an announcement about the upcoming LifeChain. The Mass ended with an announcement about a Defund Abortion Rally at the office of a local politician. The parish community applauded the announcement. It is rare for so many abortion related announcements to be presented at our parish on one Sunday.

Later, out in the parking lot, I overheard a disgruntled older couple complaining about all the abortion talk during the Mass. Then one of them said, “Don’t they know what Pope Francis just said?". I presume that meant that we should not be talking so much about, or only about, abortion. But of course the majority of what was announced and took place at the Mass had nothing to do with abortion.

Then there was a comment yesterday posted under a LifeSiteNews story:

“Well, given Pope Francis's recent comments about the Church being obsessed with abortion, contraception, and gay marriage, I don't blame the Republicans for dropping away from the fight on abortion funding. If the Pope doesn't like the bad press abortion talk gives the Catholic Church, then the Republicans can't be blamed for not wanting to be pummeled by the bad press they get which causes them to lose elections..”

Such things are being said everywhere now. Many immoral things are currently being justified in the name of Pope Francis. More than a few of the public and many in the media are interpreting (wrongly) the Pope as having said that, "whatever you think is right according to your conscience, is now all right with the Catholic Church."

There is growing moral and theological chaos happening in response to the statements of Pope Francis, especially in reaction to his press conference on the way back from Brazil and these last two interviews.

In one of my past two blog posts on the first Pope Francis interview, I noted that there was a need for much damage control to mitigate the problems caused by the misunderstandings of Pope Francis's statements in the Jesuit magazines interview.

That followed after my first blog noting that Pope Francis certainly has a way of stirring things up.

I really do not want to appear to be critical of a Pope, nor do I think it is normally appropriate to do so. To be frank though, many faithful Catholics and non-Catholic Christians are reeling from these interviews and other off-the-cuff statements of Pope Francis – regardless of what he really meant.

One of my roles is to be helpful to the Church on the matters that I and the excellent LifeSiteNews team have become international experts on. Charity, true love for our brother and sisters in Christ, often calls for some uncomfortable things to be said - with charity.

There are far too many yes-men and women and "professional Catholics" who see their role as one to always spin whatever their religious superiors say or do in the most positive light. And they would rarely, if ever mention to the bishop or pastor that there may be some serious problems with his statements or actions - at least on the controversial moral issues.

That has allowed some terrible things to develop these past 50 tumultuous years in the Church. This yes-man, professional Catholic institutional culture was one thing that likely contributed to the growth of the sex abuse scandals and the Church international development and aid agency scandals and other scandals. Another one of these concerns is the still large number of unrepentant, active homosexual clergy, at all levels, dangerously still in active ministry.

I have never experienced anything like this high level of confusion from a Pope in my 66 years’ lifetime and I assume no one else alive today could have experienced it either. We are indeed in strange and troubling times.

One thing is certain. All Catholics (and I hope many non-Catholics will join in) must pray and fast with intensity for Pope Francis.

A Pope is likely the most prayed for of all persons on earth. Everyday, he is mentioned in every Catholic Mass and he is prayed for in a special way by most religious orders and members of most Catholic movements around the world. So, regardless of whatever weaknesses and poor judgement he may have, there is real hope that any newly elected Pope will grow into a holy, great leader as a result of those prayers.

However, right now, we need to add to all the usual prayers some extra special prayer and fasting for Pope Francis because of the current circumstances. Non-Catholics are most welcome to join in as well because of the huge influence on the world that a Pope can have.

To encourage this most necessary prayer, some of the LifeSiteNews staff have set up a special Pro-Life day of prayer and fasting for Pope Francis Facebook page.

The date set for this prayer and fasting is this Friday, Oct. 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, the Pope’s patron. Check it out here. You are encouraged to add a post noting that you are joining in. Also invite friends and family to take part in the effort to pray for Francis.

If we do this, then we can be assured that we have done the very best thing possible in response to this controversy. Words have their limits compared to prayer.

It appears that Francis needs a stronger guiding light to help him in his incredibly challenging role. Inspired, courageous, authentic spiritual and moral leadership is desperately needed to fill a great vacuum of such leadership in much of the world in our time.

If that does not happen, other, extremely unpleasant things are certain to soon fill that vacuum. We don't want to go there.

P.S. Please keep in mind that this blog is my personal opinion and does not represent an official position of LifeSiteNews.



P.S. Sandro Magister set the seal today on his maverick position among the Vaticanistas for not singing from the same choirbook with respect to Pope Francis in an article whose English translation many of you may have already read:
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350615?eng=y
with the title deck unequivocalloy proclaiming
THE FRANCIS TRANSFORMATION
He has unveiled the true program of his pontificate in two interviews
and a letter to an atheist intellectual.
With respect to the popes who preceded him,
the separation appears ever more clear. In words and in deeds.


Here's another congenial commentary I just came across:

Obama hearts the Pope
By Donald R. McClarey

Oct. 3, 2013


Why am I not surprised?

President Obama said in an interview on Wednesday that he had been “hugely impressed” with Pope Francis, “not because of any particular issue” but because he seemed to be “thinking about how to embrace people as opposed to push them away.”

“He seems somebody who lives out the teachings of Christ. Incredible humility, incredible sense of empathy to the least of these, to the poor,” the president said in an interview on CNBC. “He’s also somebody who’s, I think, first and foremost, thinking about how to embrace people as opposed to push them away. How to find what’s good in them as opposed to condemn them.”

Pope Francis has given two interviews that were published in the last two weeks in which he has indicated that he wants to see a truce in the culture wars and that the Church should put love and mercy above doctrine and judgment. On the issues of abortion, gay marriage and contraception,

Pope Francis said, “It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,” adding, “We have to find a new balance.”

These words may offer a ray of hope to Mr. Obama, who has been locked in a standoff with Roman Catholic bishops in the United States. The bishops are suing the Obama administration over a mandate in the president’s health care law that requires Catholic colleges and hospitals to allow their employees access to free birth control, including morning-after pills that the bishops say are abortifacients. Declaring that President Obama is a threat to the church’s religious freedom, the bishops have mounted a major campaign to rally Catholics across the country to oppose the contraception mandate.

Memo to the Pope: With all respect, Your Holiness, when someone like Obama, who manifestly despises what the Catholic Church teaches, is hugely impressed by you, that is probably a sign that something is going very, very wrong. [Maybe so. But certainly not from the point of view of anyone who believes he can be all things to all people. Not even Jesus thought that about himself; he was always clear many would see him as a sign of contradiction,.. BTW, let us not forget that when Obam,a visited the Vatican in 2009, Benedict XVI conspicuouly gave him a copy of Dignitas Humanae, the CDSF Instruction "On Certain Bioethical Questions" issued in June 2008 with Benedict XVI's approval. Not that I think Obama even bothered to read it, but that it was Benedict's way of making a kindly papal admonition to 'the most powerful man in the world' without having to 'lecture' to a guest. Speaking Truth to power, even if power does not have ears for it.]

-

It's good to hear from you!!! I'm glad you're ok!!

I feel I should tune out of news from Rome until the next conclave!
It's too infuriating and highly frustrating!!
But then I'd miss out on those precious gems given to us by BXVI!
My heart sinks every time I hear about papal statements and interviews!
Even before reading them! It's a horrible feeling!
Testing times......




Dear Heike...

As I did wih Beatrice, i thank you with great afffection, for your kind words and your friendship.

These are testing times indeed! With tests I cannot confront with grace, unfortunately... I'd say you have managed to keep yourself above the fray rather admirably if you can even think of the next Conclave! I have not dared think ahead, but of course, it will eventually come, though only the Lord knows when. For now, it's more than I can do to cope with what is happening in Reme... I'm looking for a suitable text from B16 that would be appropriate to the situation.

All the best to you and your family.

TERESA

Curial reform will
be 'substantial',
Fr. Lombardi says

October 3, 2013

A new Apostolic Constitution will probably be written to replace Pastor Bonus, which will emphasize the Curia’s service to the universal Church and local churches. [And did not Johgn Paul II's Pastor bonus (he good shepherd), with its programmatic title, not emphasize that at all???? Fr. Lombardi suffers from a convenient historical amnesia i his presentation of developments during this Pontificate, making it appear that no Pope before now had ever thought about or provided for certain obvious things!]

The Council of Cardinals appointed by Pope Francis to assist him in his governance of the Church and reform of the Curia has been meeting at the Vatican since Tuesday.

In a briefing, the head of the Vatican Press Office Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, said we can “expect a new Constitution.” He said changes will not be a "simple upgrade" nor "marginal", but will be "substantial".

He said an important reorientation will be with the Secretariat of State, which should be in all respects a “Secretary of the Pope,” and that this will be part of the guidelines he gives the next Secretary of State, who takes office on October 15th.

In addition, a separate figure acting as a “Moderator of the Curia” could be appointed to coordinate relations between the Pope and the heads of the various Departments and offices.

The Council also spoke about the role of the laity in the Church, and how this role may be more appropriately and effectively recognized and followed in the government of the Church.

The Cardinals also continued their discussion from Tuesday on the Synod of Bishops, as Pope Francis prepares to decide its theme and implementation.

Father Lombardi said the Council briefly touched on the issues surrounding financial institutions, but will wait until the various committees established by the Pope issue their reports before discussing the matter thoroughly.

The date of the next meeting of the Council of Cardinals has not been decided by Pope Francis, but it is expected early next year.

Here is an English translation by the Vatican Information Service of the full text of Father Lombardi's briefing:

---

THE COUNCIL OF CARDINALS:
A NEW CONSTITUION FOR THE CURIA

The reform of the Curia and the attribution of a more incisive role to the laity were among the principal themes considered yesterday afternoon and this morning in the meeting of the Council of Cardinals, instituted by the Pope to assist him in the governance of the Church, said the director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J., in a briefing with journalists.

Before commenting on the issues discussed by the cardinals, Fr. Lombardi referred to the words of the Pope at the end of the audience with participants in the meeting held to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of John XXIII's encyclical, “Pacem in terris”, in which he recalled the victims, currently numbered at 90, of the shipwreck this morning near the Italian island of Lampedusa.

“In the light of this new tragedy”, he said, “we understand more clearly the value and meaning of the first trip of Francis' pontificate”.

Moving on to the work of the Council of Cardinals, he stated that the Pope was present yesterday in the afternoon session, held between 4 and 7 p.m.

“The Holy Father goes to pray at the Chapel at seven o'clock, and that is the end of their collaboration, although the cardinals may join him together, if they see fit. This morning he was not present as he received in audience the participants in the meeting organised by the Pontifical Council 'Justice and Peace'”.

The cardinals worked principally on the reform of the Curia. “The direction of their work would not indicate an updating of the apostolic Constitution 'Pastor Bonus', with retouches and marginal modifications”, explained Lombardi, “but rather, a new constitution with significant new aspects. It will be necessary to wait a reasonable amount of time following this Council, but the idea is this. The cardinals have made it clear that they do not intend to make cosmetic retouches or minor modifications to 'Pastor bonus'”.
The intention of the cardinals is to emphasise the nature of the service on the part of the Curia and the universal and local church “in terms of subsidiarity, rather than the exercise of centralised power. The intended direction would be to put this into practice in the service of the Church in all her dimensions”.

Another important theme was the nature and functions of the Secretariat of State, which “should be the secretariat of the Pope; the word State should not give rise to doubt. This body serves the Pope in the governance of the universal Church. The meeting of the Council is very useful at the moment, in view of the directions the Pope will give to the new Secretary of State, who will assume his role shortly, on 15 October”.

Again in relation to the Curia, the Council will address the matter of relations between the heads of the dicasteries and the Pope, and co-ordination between the various bodies.

“In this context, mention was made of the role of a 'Moderator Curiae' (moderator for the Curia), and the functions of such a figure. The issue was touched upon but no decision has been made as to whether it will form part of the new constitution; however, it is in fact one of the hypotheses suggested by the Council”.

With regard to a possible reorganisation of the administration of temporal goods, the cardinals touched upon this matter but without exploring the theme in depth, since they are awaiting the “reports of the referring commissions on the matter, who will communicate the results of their work [to the Council]”.

The question of the laity merited “significant attention” from Council members, as they had received many suggestions and questions on this subject from their various areas of origin.

“When dealing with the reform of the curia and its institutions, the Council also plans to give more specific attention to issues relating to the laity, so that this dimension of the life of the Church is properly and effectively recognised and followed by the governance of the Church. Now there is a Pontifical Council for the Laity, but it is still possible to think of ways of strengthening this aspect”.
This morning, in view of the preparations for the next Synod, debate on the matter was reopened.

Finally, Lombardi said that yesterday no date had been set for the next meeting of the Council, although mention was made of a meeting in spring next year, of an informal nature.

“The intention”, he concluded, “is to continue, without waiting for too long. Also, it would be incorrect to assume that nothing happens between one meeting and another; the cardinals and the Pope continue to exchange opinions and messages, even in the absence of a plenary meeting of the Council”.

---

And for the record, since this happened whoile I was away, Pope Francis formally consituted his Council of 8 on Sept 30, the day before their scheduled first meeting.

THE POPE INSTITUTES A COUNCIL OF CARDINALS
TO ASSIST IN THE GOVERNANCE OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH


Vatican City, 30 September 2013 (VIS) – We publish below the full text of the Chirograph by which the Holy Father institutes a Council of Cardinals to assist him in the governance of the universal Church and to draw up a project for the revision of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor bonus on the Roman Curia.

---

Among the suggestions that emerged from the General Congregations of Cardinals prior to the Conclave, mention was made of the expediency of instituting a limited group of Members of the Episcopate, from various parts of the world, with whom the Holy Father could consult, individually or collectively, on specific matters.

Once elected to the See of Rome, I have had the opportunity to reflect on this issue on a number of occasions, and consider that such an initiative would be of significant use in fulfilling the pastoral ministry of Peter’s Successor entrusted to me by my brother cardinals.

For this reason, on 13 April I announced the constitution of the aforementioned group, at the same time indicating the names of those who had been called to participate. Now, following reflection, I consider it opportune that such a group, by means of the present Chirograph, be instituted as a 'Council of Cardinals', with the task of assisting me in the governance of the universal Church and drawing up a project for the revision of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor bonus on the Roman Curia.

It will be composed of the same persons previously nominated, who may be called upon, both in Council and singly, on matters that I will from time to time consider worthy of attention.

The aforementioned Council which, with regard to the number of members, I will compose in the most appropriate way, will constitute a further expression of Episcopal communion and of the aid to the munus petrinum that the Episcopate, disseminated throughout the world, may offer.

---

There has been little rhyme or reason so far in what I have posted today, rather randomly, but I ought to have begun with this lookback to Oct. 3, 2012, when Benedict XVI spoke at his General Audience about the liturgy in his yearlong catecheses on Christian prayer...



GENERAL AUDIENCE
Oct. 3, 2012







'Liturgy is celebrated
for God, not for us'

In his catechetical cycle of prayer which began in May 2011, the Holy Father reflected for the second week on liturgical prayer, this time emphasizing its ecclesial nature - liturgy as "participation
in Christ’s own prayer addressed to the Father in the Holy Spirit", as "the place where God comes to us and enters our lives".

This is how he synthesized today's lesson in English:

---

Today, I would like to highlight the ecclesial nature of liturgical prayer. The liturgy is a "participation in Christ’s own prayer addressed to the Father in the Holy Spirit" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1073).

The Church, as Christ’s Mystical Body and united with him, offers worship to the Father. By identifying ourselves with Christ in his prayer to the Father, we rediscover our deepest identity as Christians, as children of "Our Father who art in heaven".

The liturgy is also an encounter of the whole Christ, that is, with Christ and his body the Church. Thus, the liturgy is a sharing in the prayer of the living, universal community of believers in Christ.

Prayer becomes the habitual realization of the presence of God, as we make the words of the Church our own, and learn to speak in her and through her.

The Church is most truly herself in the liturgy, as it is the place where God comes to us and enters our lives. Let us remember that the liturgy is celebrated for God, not for us; it is his work; he is its subject. For our part, in the liturgy we must leave ourselves open to be guided by him and by his Body, the Church.

---

At the end, he asked for the prayers of the faithful as he undertakes a pilgrimage to Loreto tomorrow for the success
of the Year of Faith and the Synodal Assembly on the New Evangelization.


Here is Vatican Radio's translation of the catechesis:

---

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In the last catechesis I began speaking about one of the privileged sources of Christian prayer: the sacred liturgy, which - as the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms – is “participation in Christ’s own prayer addressed to the Father in the Holy Spirit” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1073). In the liturgy, all Christian prayer finds its source and goal." (n. 1073).

Today I would like us to ask ourselves: in my life, do I reserve enough space for prayer and, above all, what place does liturgical prayer have in my relationship with God, especially the Mass, as participation in the common prayer of the Body of Christ which is the Church?

In answering this question, we must first remember that prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit (cf. ibid., 2565).

Therefore, the life of prayer lies in habitually being in the presence of God and being conscious of it, in living our relationship with God just as we live the usual relationships of our lives, those with close family members, and with real friends; indeed our relationship with the Lord gives light to all of our other relationships.

This communion of life with God, One and Triune, is possible because, through Baptism we have been inserted into Christ, we have begun to be one with Him (cf. Rom 6:5).

In fact, only in Christ we can talk to God the Father as children, otherwise it is not possible, but in communion with the Son, we too can say, as he said “Abba", because only in communion with Christ, can we know God as our true Father (cf. Mt 11:27).

Because of this, Christian prayer lies in constantly looking, in an ever new way, at Christ, talking with Him, being in silence with Him, listening to Him, acting and suffering with Him. The Christian rediscovers his true identity in Christ, "the firstborn of every creature», in whom all things were created (cf. Col 1:15 ff).

By identifying with Him, being one with Him, I discover my personal identity, that of the true child who sees God as a Father full of love.

But do not forget: we discover Christ, we know him as a living Person, in the Church. It is "his Body." This embodiment can be understood from the biblical words on man and woman: the two shall become one flesh (cf. Gen 2:24, Eph 5.30 ff. 1 Cor 6.16 s).

The unbreakable bond between Christ and the Church, through the unifying power of love, does not negate the 'you' or ‘I', but raises them to their most profound unity. Finding one’s true identity in Christ means achieving communion with him, that does not cancel me out, but raises me to the highest dignity, that of a child of God in Christ.

"The love-story between God and man consists in the very fact that this communion of will increases in a communion of thought and sentiment, and thus our will and God's will increasingly coincide" (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, 17).

To pray means to rise towards the heights of God through a necessary gradual transformation of our being.

Thus, participating in the liturgy, we make the language of Mother Church ours - we learn to speak it and for it. Of course, as I have already said, this takes place in a gradual manner, little by little. I have to progressively immerse myself in the words of the Church, with my prayer, my life, my suffering, my joy, my thoughts. It is a journey that transforms us.

Thus I think that these reflections enable us to answer the question that we posed at the beginning: how do I learn to pray, how can I grow in my prayer?

Looking at the model that Jesus taught us, the Pater Noster [Our Father], we see that the first word is "Father" and the second is "our." The answer, then, is clear: I learn to pray, I nourish my prayer, addressing God as Father and praying-with-others, praying with the Church, accepting the gift of his words, which gradually become familiar and rich in meaning.

The dialogue that God establishes with each of us, and we with Him, in prayer, always includes a "with" - you can not pray to God in an individualistic manner.

In liturgical prayer, especially the Eucharist, and - formed by the liturgy - in every prayer, we do not speak as single individuals, rather we enter into the "we" of the Church that prays. We need to transform our "I" entering into this "we".

I would like to recall another important aspect. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read: "In the liturgy of the New Covenant every liturgical action, especially the celebration of the Eucharist and the sacraments, is an encounter between Christ and the Church" (n. 1097); so it is the "whole Christ" , throughout the Community -, the Body of Christ united with its Head - that celebrates.

Thus the liturgy is not a kind of "self-manifestation" by a community, but it means emerging from the simple fact of "being-oneself", being closed in on ourselves, and accessing the great banquet, entering the great living community in which God nourishes us.

The liturgy implies universality, and our awareness of this universal character must always be renewed. The Christian liturgy is the worship of the universal temple which is the Risen Christ, whose arms are stretched out on the cross to draw us all into the embrace that is the eternal love of God.

It is the cult of the open skies. It is never only the event of a single community, in a given time and space. It is important that every Christian feels and really is part of this universal "we", which provides the foundation and refuge to the "I" in the Body of Christ which is the Church.

In this we must be aware of and accept the logic of the Incarnation of God: He has drawn near, he is present, entering into history and human nature, becoming one of us. And this presence continues in the Church, his Body.

The liturgy then is not the memory of past events, but it is the living presence of Christ's Paschal Mystery that transcends and unites all times and spaces.

If the centrality of Christ does not emerge in the celebration, then it is not a Christian liturgy, totally dependent on the Lord and sustained by his creative presence. God acts through Christ and we can only act through him and in him. Every day the conviction must grow in us that the liturgy is not our, my, 'action', but the action of God in us and with us.

It is not the individual - priest or layman - or the group that celebrates the liturgy. It is primarily God's action through the Church, which has its own history, its rich tradition and creativity. This universality and fundamental openness, which is characteristic of the entire liturgy is one of the reasons why it cannot be created or amended by the individual community or by experts, but must be faithful to the forms of the universal Church.

The entire Church is always present, even in the liturgy of the smallest community. For this reason there-are no "foreigners" in the liturgical community. The entire Church participates in every liturgical celebration - heaven and earth, God and man.

The Christian liturgy, even if it is celebrated in a concrete place and space, and expresses the "yes" of a particular community, is inherently Catholic - it comes from everything and leads to everything, in union with the Pope, the Bishops, with believers of all times and all places.

The more a celebration is animated by this consciousness, the more fruitful the true sense of the liturgy is realized in it.

Dear friends, the Church is made visible in many ways: in its charitable work, in mission projects, in the personal apostolate that every Christian must realize in his or her own environment.

But the place where it is fully experienced as a Church is in the liturgy: it is the act in which we believe that God enters into our reality and we can meet Him, we can touch Him. It is the act in which we come into contact with God, He comes to us, and we are enlightened by Him.

So when in the reflections on the liturgy we concentrate all our attention on how to make it attractive, interesting and beautiful, we risk forgetting the essential: the liturgy is celebrated for God and not for ourselves, it is His work, He is the subject, and we must open ourselves to Him and be guided by Him and His Body which is the Church.

Let us ask the Lord that we may learn every day to live the sacred liturgy, especially the Eucharistic celebration, praying in the "we" of the Church, that directs her gaze not in on herself, but to God, and to feel part of the living Church of all places and of all time. Thank you.

After the plurilingual greetings to the faithful, he said this:

Dear brothers and sisters,
Tomorrow I will visit the Shrine of Loreto, on the 50th anniversary of the famous pilgrimage made by Blessed Pope John XXIII to that Marian site a week before the Second Vatican Council opened.

I ask you to join me in prayer to commend to the Mother of God the major Church events that we are about to experience: The Year of Faith and the General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod on the New Evangelization.

May the Blessed Virgin accompany the Church in her mission to announce the Gospel to the men and women of our time.

---

How appropriate that the Holy Father's catecheses as we approach the Golden Jubilee of the start of Vatican II should be about understanding the proper sense of the liturgy. A do-as-you-please attitude super-imposed on what was unabashedly a hastily cobbled committee product that was the Protestantizing liturgical overhaul imposed overnight on the Church in 1969-1970, was emblematic of the entire mindset that progessivists passed on to countless Catholics after Vatican-II - to follow the path of least resistance and maximum personal gratification and convenience with regard to Catholic teaching in general and specific practices that had always been prohibited in the Church.

What ever happened to the idea that liturgy should evolve organically and not be invented by committee? Fortunately, someone like Benedict XVI came along to show us how to make the most of a flawed product, seeing that we have to live with it [though he has also given us the choice to worship in the traditional way] and how it can be made to approach the profundity and sacredness of traditional liturgy.






I've been thinking about PF's implicit criticism of Benedict XVI for making statements against abortion, euthanasia, etc. "all the time", in explaining his deliberate choice to avoid making his own statements about them and leaving it to the local bishops to fight these battles on their own turf.

"It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time" is what he said textually. "We have to find a new balance".

Benedict XVI spoke about these issues whenever the occasion presented itself, which was his duty as the Pope. He did not miss any such occasion, but it certainly was not 'all the time', because most other times, he was preaching and teaching the essentials of the faith and of Christian practice, including prayer, to provide the rational basis for the Catholic arguments against the moral issues that his successor prefers to distance himself from.

This Pope's choice - to make nice above all to everybody, not offending anyone, as an expression of God's mercy, mind you, and elaborating on his idea that each person can decide what is good or bad and act accordingly - may be wildly popular, but popular does not mean right. It is also egregiousloy hypocritical, because at the same time, he uses the meant-to=be-exculpatory statement "I am a son of the Church and believe what the Church teaches", while avoiding to state the truths the Church teaches that the wide world out there finds unpalatable if not offensive. That's my very biased view, of course.

Having missed the Feast of the Archangels on Sept. 29 and the Feast of the Guardian Angels yesterday, I am making use of last Sunday's column by my former pastor, Fr. George Rutler, who provides us with a very useful compendium of Biblical knowledge about angels. Fr. Rutler is now pastor of St. Michael's Church in midtown Manhattan, a church that does not, however, offer the traditional Mass on Sundays as does Fr/ Rutler's previous church, the Church of our Savior, which I continue to attend for that Mass.

The science of angels
by Fr. George W. Rutler
Sept. 29, 2013

The Feast of the Archangels, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael on September 29, is quickly followed by the Feast of the Guardian Angels on October 2.


THE ARCHANGELS MICHAEL, GABRIEL & RAPHAEL
The only angels named in Scripture, the archangels are the highest-ranking angels acting as God's messengers to men . Michael is generally considered the protector archangel; Gabriel the messenger archangel, having announced the Incarnation to Mary; and Raphael, the healing archangel.


Here we get into a deep science: not the natural science which increasingly is opening up the wonders of the physical universe, but rather the higher science of perfect spirits and incalculable intelligences, whose lowest "choirs" are the angels and archangels.

Unlike natural science, this knowledge comes not from observation but from revelation. We use reason to acknowledge that there are wonders beyond our ability to reason, and that includes angels who have no need of reason because they are pure intellects.

Angels are creatures, but existed before the first man (Colossians 1:15-16). They are subject to Christ (1 Peter 3:21-22). They enjoy the constant presence of God (Luke 1:18-19). They are numerous beyond human calculation, and so they are described as thousands upon thousands, or myriads, since Hebrew has no word for “millions." (Hebrews 12:22-23).

They know God's will but do not know all its details (Matthew 24:35-36). Angels are multi-lingual (1 Corinthians 4:9) and patrol the earth (Zechariah 1:10-11). Although Christ is divine, he can appear as an angel (Hosea 12:4-5). Angels can appear as winds and fire (Hebrews 1:7) and they rejoice when we go to Confession (Luke 15:9-20).

Scripture never says that they have halos, and only seraphim and cherubim are described as having wings, so we would probably not recognize an angel if we saw one.

They are astonishingly strong, so that one was able to slay 185,000 Assyrians. They want to comfort us (Matthew 28:1-7) and do not want us to give them the worship which is due to God alone (Colossians 2:18-19). Jesus had power to invoke 72,000 of them (twelve legions) had he wanted to avoid crucifixion, but he did not (Matthew 26:52-53). At the end of the created universe they will accompany Jesus in the Final Judgment (Matthew 25:31).

As angels have no bodies, they have no size, and so they care for everyone equally, regardless of size or age or worldly importance. Jesus said that the littlest human body has a guardian angel in heaven (Matthew 18:10). In each of us the guardian angels see their Lord and our Lord. So Pope Francis said on September 20: "Every child that isn't born, but is unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of Jesus Christ."

St. Pius of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio) wrote to a young girl: "Never say you are alone in sustaining the battle against your enemies. Never say you have nobody to whom you can open up and confide. You would do this heavenly messenger a grave wrong."

This time last year, Benedict XVI ended his three-month summer sojourn in Castel Gandolfo, and looking back, I was struck by the two themes that he picked up from the Sunday Gospel on Sept. 30, 2012, because the first had to do with good deeds performed by non-Christians, and the second with when and why wealth can be objectionable... Benedict's pastoral gentleness is soothing. His language has none of PF's brand of fire-and-brimstone that, unlike his anodyne and all-placating bonhomie in his 'public' statements, he dispenses in his daily Santa Marta homilies when he inveighs against clerical careerists, spinster nuns, pickle-faced Catholics and the like.



SUNDAY ANGELUS
Sept. 30, 2012





In the Holy Father's last Angelus for the summer at Castel Gandolfo, he commented on today's Gospel in which Jesus allows a man to cast out demons in his name, saying Christians should always welcome it
when someone not in the Church does something good.

Commenting on a passage from the Letter of James, he said Jesus taught there was nothing wrong in having wealth if such wealth is used to help others.



Here is a translation of the Holy Father's words today:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

The Gospel this Sunday presents one of those episodes in the life of Christ which, although caught, so to speak, in passing, contain a profound significance (cfr Mk 9,38-41).

It has to do with someone, who was not among Jesus's followers, who had chased out demons in his name. The apostle John, young and zealous as he was, had wanted to prevent the man from doing so, but Jesus did not allow him.

Rather, he took the occasion to teach his disciples that God can perform good and even miraculous things outside their own circle, that one can collaborate with the Kingdom of God in diverse ways, even by offering a glass of water to a missionary (v. 41).

St. Augustine wrote in this regard: "Just as in the Catholic Church, one can find those who are not Catholic, outside the Church, there can be something that is Catholic" (Augustine, On baptism, against the Donatists: PL 43, VII, 39, 77).

That is why members of the Church should not feel jealous but rejoice when someone outside the community does good in the name of Christ, if he does it with the right intention and with respect.

Even within the Church itself, it can happen at times that it costs effort to value and appreciate, in a spirit of profound communion, the good things done by various ecclesial entities. Rather, we should all be always capable of appreciating and esteeming each other, praising the Lord for the infinite 'imagination' in which he operates in the Church and the world.

Today's liturgy also resounds with the invective of the apostle James against dishonest rich men who place their security in the wealth they have accumulated through abuses (cfr Jm 5,1-6).

In this respect, Cesarius of Arles said in a discourse: "Wealth cannot do harm to a good man because he gives of his riches with mercy, in the same way that wealth cannot help a bad man for as long as he keeps it greedily or wastes it in dissipation" (Sermons 35, 4).

The words of the apostle James, while they warn against vain greed for material things, also constitute a strong call to use these things in the perspective of solidarity and the common good. always working with equity and morality at all levels.

Dear friends, through the intercession of the Most Blessed Mary, let us pray so that we may know how to avail of every gesture and initiative for good, without envy or jealousy, and to use earthly goods in the continuous search for eternal good.

After the prayers, he said this:

I have been following with affection and concern what has been happening to the people of the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has been the object of attention these days at high-level meetings in the United Nations.

I am particularly close to the refugees, the women and children, who have been suffering from violence and profound distress because of persistent armed encounters in the region.

I call on God that peaceful ways of dialog, as we[[ as protection of so many innocent people, may be found; that peace based on justice may soon return; and that fraternal coexistence may be renewed among a population that has been so sorely tested, and in the entire region.

---

Pope makes his farewells after
three months in Castel Gandolfo
Adapted from

Sept. 29, 2012


Left, the Pope greets CG authorities; right, he addresses the staff of the Pontifical Villas and their families. (Enlarged from Vatican Radio thumbnails).

Pope Benedict XVI expressed his thanks and bade farewell Saturday morning to the civilian and military authorities of Castel Gandolfo, along with the city's religious communities, as he prepares to return to the Vatican after spending almost three months in the papal summer residence here. He returns to the Vatican on Monday afternoon, Oct. 3.

He praised the efforts of all those who assisted and gave hospitality to him, his colleagues, and all the guests and Pilgrims who travel to the resort town to meet him.

He asked them to continue their spiritual closeness to him in prayer. Mayor Maurizio Colacchi promised to pray for him and for his intentions, especially for families in need and for the sick.

The Pope had special thanks for the police and military forces that provide security and transportation during his stay at the Papal summer retreat. These include the Papal Gendarmerie, Italian State Police, the Swiss Guard and the 31st Squadron of the Italian Air Force.

Here is a translation of the Pope's remarks:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

I am happy to welcome you at the end of my summer stay in Castel Gandolfo. It has allowed me to live a time of study, prayer, and rest, during which I have noted with admiration the solicitude and attention of all the persons involved in guaranteeing assistance and hospitality to me and my co-workers, as well as the guests and pilgrims who have come here to meet the Successor of Peter.

I express my great appreciation to each and everyone for your profuse dedication in the course of the past three months. In the summertime, Castel Gandolfo is confirmed as a 'second seat' for the Bishop of Rome, that views with Rome in the capacity to welcome visitors and pilgrims who come to pray the Angelus on Sundays and for the General Audiences on Wednesday.

I greet with affection and gratitude, first of all, the Bishop of Albano, Mons. Marcello Semeraro. I greet the parish priest of Castel Gandolfo and his co-workers, along with the religious and lay communities, male and female, in the territory.

I ask you all to continue making me feel your spiritual closeness even after my departure, just as you have during the time I have been here. I am thankful for this, and I encourage you to continue with trust and joy your service to Christ and his Gospel.

I also greet the civilian authorities of Castel Gandolfo in the person of the Mayor. As I thank you for the readiness and concern you have shown, I assure you of remembrance in prayer for all of your community, especially for families in difficulty and for the sick.

I am also pleased to greet the officials of the various offices of the Vatican Governatorate - the Gendarmerie Corps, the florists, the technical and health services - as well as the forces of Italian law and order and the officials and airmen of the 31st Squadron of the Military Aeronautic forces.

May the Lord reqard you all with abundant heavenly duties and watch over you and your families.

Dear brothers and sisters, I thank you for your presence today at this meeting. The best way to remember each other is in prayer: I will never fail to pray for you and your intentions, and I trust that you will do the same for me.

To the Virgin Mary whom we venerate in the month of October as the Queen of the Holy Rosary, I entrust each of you, your families and friends. May she with her loving regard always accompany and sustain us in our journey along the road of justice and truth.

With these sentiments, I impart the Apostolic Blessing on each of you present and to all your dear ones.

---

On Friday afternoon, the Pope made his farewells to the the staff of the Pontifical Villas at Castel Gandolfo, along with their families. in what has become a traditional greeting and leave-taking at the end of the Pope’s sojourn in the ancient hill town outside Rome, Pope Benedict XVI thanked all those who work to make the Papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo safe, pleasant and relaxing.

“Everything passes in this world!” he said. “So it is also with serene and peaceful times,” as he described the months from July through the end of the present month of September, in “the beautiful setting of Castel Gandolfo... (where) he could “breathe a family atmosphere and great cordiality.”

The Holy Father also looked ahead to his upcoming visit to Loreto next Tuesday, to mark the 50th anniversary of the pilgrimage of Blessed John XXIII to the Marian shrine a week before the Second Vatican Council opened, to entrust the Council to the Mother of God, Mary.

In which connection, he referred to the coming General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod to discuss the tasks of New Evangelization, and the opening of the Year of Faith starting with the 50th anniversary of the Vatican-II opening on Oct. 11.

Here is a full translation of his remarks:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

Everything passes away in this world! Everything that begins, even the most positive and the most beautiful, inevitably carries with it its own conclusion. So it is too for the serene and tranquil time that I have spent here with you, in the beautiful setting of Castel Gandolfo, where once more, I have breathed a climate of familiarity and of genuine cordiality.

Our meeting today, which has become a gratifying custom, gives me the opportunity to thank each and everyone of you for the generous service you carry out in this Pontifical Residence.

My special and affectionate greeting goes to Dott. Saverio Petrillo, general director of the Pontifical Villas, with gratitude for his kind words which he addressed to me in your name. And a dear greeting to all the personnel and their families. May the Lord, rich with goodness, bless you all and keep you in his love.

The month of September which is coming to an end is always the time for a positive new launch after the summer vacation. For your children, school begins again, and for all of you, it means more intense and assiduous work.

Even in the Church, for many Christian communities throughout the world, God the Father gives us the beginning of a new pastoral year. But we also have some events that are very significant.

I think of my coming visit to Loreto, with which I wish to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the pilgrimage by Blessed John XXIII to that Marian shrine in order to entrust the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council to Mary.

There is the General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod which will reflect on the New Evangelization in today's Church and in the world.

And finally, on the 50th anniversary of the Council opening - the start of the Year of Faith. which I decreed to help every man open up his heart and his life to Jesus our Lord and to his Word of salvation.

Thus I entrust to your prayers, dear friends, these important ecclesial events that we are called upon to live. May the Lord assist you and help each one to grow in the faith, to rediscover Jesus as the precious and genuine pearl, the treasure of our life.

May the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church and ours, whom we invoke confidently in the coming month of October with the daily recitation of the Holy Rosary, always protect and sustain you to realize all the good intentions in your heart.

Let my blessing also accompany you, which I impart on each and everyone, to your families and all who are dear to you, especially those who are sick and suffering. (He gives the Blessing)

Arrivederci!

---

I took the time to translate this blog post by Sandro Magieter from a few days ago only because the writer he cites comes to the same conclusion I have often expressed here about 'Francine humility' [I use the adjective 'Francine' to denote the Pope rather than 'Franciscan' which denotes St. Francis, just as I use the adjective 'Benedettian' rather than 'Benedictine' for B16] which has resulted in placing the person of the Pope front and center of everything... That I translated this item is by no means an unqualified endorsement of the writer's views...

The hard-to-please Piero Stefani:
Even Pope Francis is not to his liking
Translated from

Sept. 30, 2013

Piero Stefani, 64, is one of the most pedigreed intellectuals among Italy's Catholic progressivists. He teaches Judaism at the Theological Faculty of Milan and at the Pontifical Gregorian University [run by the Jesuits].

For decades, he has been the most prestigious byline in Il Regno, the authoritative Bologna-based bimonthly magazine of the Dehonians, for whom he writes a monthly column and a weekly blog. He has edited various religious book series and has published numerous books and essays on the religious sciences and ecumenism.

He was always openly opposed to the thinking of Benedict XVI, to the point of claiming that with the Regenxburg lecture, the Pope had "placed himnself in a state of perpetual blackmailability by Islam", and that in general, "the abstract elevation of his thinking" manufests "an inability tnot just to read and interpret but even to accept the real world". [The facts are, Mr. Stefani, that 1) since the initial two-week eruption of irrational ire and illwill against B16, no Muslim of any standing has ever again reproached him for Regensburg; and 2) that the many books and articles of analytical examination of the contemporary world written by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI continue to be cited authoritatively by reputable scholars and commentators who do not dismiss him out of sheer prejudice as someone isolated in his own ivory tower, as Marco Politi and his ilk do. And BTW, 'the abstract elevation of his thinking' has not kept JR/B16 from being consistently clear, unequivocal and understandable to all, in all his statements and positions.]

One would therefore have expected that with the arrival of Pope Francis, Stefani would be applauding along with the rest of the Catholic progressivist world. But no! Even this Pope is not to his liking. On his weekly blog on "Biblical reflections", Stefani wrote a post recently that was murderously critical of Pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

After venting his ire on what he considered words "not commensurate to the magnitude of the event" said by Pope Francis in Cagliari on Sept. 23 about the massacre of Christians that had taken place that day in a church in Pakistan, Stefani concluded his post by citing some lines from Dante:

---

“‘Le sue permutazioni non hanno tregue: / necessità la fa esser veloce’ (Her permutations do not cease; necessity makes them go fast) (Inferno VII, 88-89). The lines written by Dante about Dame Fortune fit perfectly to describe the behavior of Pope Francis.

With him, we face an incesssant succession of words, facts and gestures. Almost daily there is something new: encyclyicals wrtten or pre-announced, fasting, prayers, interviews, letters, speeches, appointments, ausdiences, trips, telephone calls, tweets.

An extraordinary figure, Francis opens unprecedented prospects in which the voice of the Gospel sometimes sounds strong and recognizable to all. [Why unprecedented? Did other Popes not preach the Gospel in their own way, and forcefully, not just 'sometimes'?]

But the permutations do not cease. and it is this endless storm that constantly pushes to the background what a few hours earlier had been the headlines. One is unable to find a fixed point - and I don't mean, of respite - not even a turning point.

All of this with the result - clearly against the profound intention of the Pope himself - that what remains front and center in everythiung is the person himself of Francis and no longer his message. [See, even Stefani rationalizes for Francis, just as much as the Torniellis and Rodaris and other Francis-idolators do! Everyone now concedes this Pope is an inborn PR genius who kept this asset well hidden and completely unsuspected until he became Pope, so one can hardly think he is unaware of the effect he is making, much less of the ways in which he is bringing about this effect, which clearly he wants to have. John Allen said it without any touch of irony and in all earnestness, in one of his earliest entries from Rio last July: "Francis himself is the message". What haooened to
Christ, he does not say.

The style seen as humble, simple and communicative focuses the attention on the person of the Pope more han any solemn gesture or auhoritative statement. By virtue of a true and proper heterogenesis of objectives, Francis risks identifying the Gospel message with himself. [But is that not the point of all this mediatic proficiency? He does want to be seen as the very embodiment of the Gospel message, much as Francis of Assisi was, which is all very admirable, if he can do so without the Pharisaic breastbeating of "See how different I am from any Pope before me? I practise what I preach". Even if, for instance, he has volunteered more than once that the primary reason he has decided to remain in Santa Marta is because 'psychologically', he cannot be alone. As if the Popes who lived in the Apostolic Palace before him were ever 'alone' in the papal apartment. Each of them, to some degree, had the comfort of a 'pontifical family' on hand, from Pius XII's devoted Sister Pascalina to the sprawling Polish commune of John Paul II and Benedict XVI's little 'family' that, with the exception of Mons. Xuereb, he has kept intact even in his retirement. Of course, I must say again how strange it is to hear a holy man say that psychologically, he cannot be alone, and that in Buenos Aires, everyone makes much of the fact that he lived by himself in an apartment. Is he different psychologically now that he is Pope? Or to take an even more specific comparison: How about 'the good Pope' John XXIII', who did not disdain as improper and unworthy of the Gospel message any of the time-honored papal traditions, from coronation with the triple tiara and the use of the sedia gestatoria, to more routine ones like wearing red shoes, the ceremonial mozzetta, choir drees, the camauro and under appropriate papal wear - and yet was not considered to be 'a contradiction of the Gospel message' but a living saint? Has it ever occurred to any Vaticanista to point out such inconsistencies? Not at all, because it spoils their narrative of the pluperfect Pope and of 'il Papa buono' himself, soon to be a saint despite wearing red shoes and living in the papal apartment and using whatever cars were intended for his use from the papal garage. And an even more recent example, from the Pope's tete-a-tete with Scalfari: When he decried 'the narcissism of Church leaders who surround themselves with courtiers', was that not an unnecessary dissing that most everyone understood to refer to previous Popes, and in which the thin line between genuine humility and Pharisaic "Thank God I am not like others are!" has been clearly breached? And yet, who is the one with childlike homesty who is ever going to say the Emperor is naked when he is?]

In our mass-mediatic world, it is rare that anything is considered 'optimum', and where there is one, there is nothing easier than to turn it into 'the worst'. [Is Stefani saying that PF, in fact, represents the best there is, only that media can also quickly turn the best into the worst at the snap of a finger?]

---

If I am not mistaken, Stefani is the first eminent personage in Italy who has broken ranks with the consensi among Catholic progressivists about the current Pope.

Of course, the more interesting piece that Magister ran on his blog (yesterday) was Prof. Pietro Di Marco's statement of reservations about Pope Francis, which begins with the words "In conscience, I must break into the choir of courtiers, made up of well-known lay and ecclesiastical names, who have accompanied for months he public interventions of Pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio...." I thought it had been translated into English for www.chiesa, but it hasn't. Perhaps I will translate it...

TERESA BENEDETTA, 03/10/2013 18:28:

---

ALWAYS AND EVER OUR MOST BELOVED BENEDICTUS XVI

To dear Gloria and everyone else who has been following this thread on the Forum: I am truly sorry for dropping out over the past several days. I have never been away for so long from this Forum or the PRF before it, and only some sort of force majeure could have kept me away. But the circumstances for it - that I will not seek to explain because they are irrelevant for what I do on the Forum - also coincided with and were aggravated by a need to distance myself for a while from the media/blog mill, which unfortunately is the only way one can get the news.

The PF interview for the Jesuit magazines sort of tipped over my extreme and suffocating claustrophobia about media coverage of the Papacy into a mania equivalent to beating my head on the walls and tearing my nails out in an effort to claw my way out of the horrible cage that has clamped down since about two hours after the 'Habemus Papam' on March 13, when I first realized the horrific effects that all the new Popemania would have for Benedict XVI... Unfortunately, my absence also came during that most welcome restorative news about B16's letter to Odifreddi - which came like a spring gusher of pure clear water of selflessness after all the treacly self-serving statements made by his successor and gulped down in endless wonder by his adulators.

As there is so much to make up for, I have not yet decided how best to resume posting, but I will do so tonight, after my regular workday. Again, my apologies...

Friday, Oct. 4, 26th Week in Ordinary Time
MEMORIAL OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI

Some portraits of Francis, from left: Detail from earliest known portrait, done in his lifetime, before 1224, is a fresco in the Chapel of St. Gregory at the Benedictine convent of Subiaco; Francis and the Angels, Botticelli, 1480; by Zurbaran, 1658; Francis receives the stigmata, Fra Angelico, 1440; from the Pesaro altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini, 1474; by El Greco, 1585.
SAN FRANCESCO D'ASSISI (Italy, 1181-1226), Deacon, Founder of the Franciscan Orders, Mystic, Patron of Italy, Patron of Ecologists
In addition to his discourses on St. Francis when he visited Assisi in 2007, Benedict XVI devoted his catechesis on January 27, 2010
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100127...
to a saint whom he has mentioned most often next to St. Augustine during his Pontificate, perhaps because he embodies the Pope's own ideal. Calling him 'a great saint and a joyful man', he went on to note in the January catechesis: "There subsists an intimate and indissoluble relationship between holiness and joy... There is only one sorrow in the world: not to be saints, to be close to God... Looking at the testimony of St Francis, we understand that this is the secret of true happiness: to become saints, close to God!" Increasingly, Benedict XVI's message - as to young people every chance he gets - is a call to holiness. St. Francis's story is well-known, but perhaps little noted is that though he founded an order, he was never a priest himself. And yet, as Benedict XVI noted: "Francis always showed great deference towards priests, and asserted that they should always be treated with respect, even in cases where they might be somewhat unworthy personally. The reason he gave for this profound respect was that they receive the gift of consecrating the Eucharist. Dear brothers in the priesthood, let us never forget this teaching: the holiness of the Eucharist appeals to us to be pure, to live in a way that is consistent with the Mystery we celebrate".
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100413.cfm

WITH POPE FRANCIS TODAY[

Today was the Pope's day to visit the birthplace of the saint whose name he took as his pontifical name. In between private visits to all of the major shrines in Assisi linked to the lives of St. Francis and St. Clare, he also celebrated Mass at the piazza of the Basilica of St. Francis and visited with various groups, including wards ata hospital for the disabled, beneficiaries of Caritas at a lunch he joined, the clergy, religious and seminarians of te diocese, and finally, the young people of Umbria. In many ways, it resembled Benedict XVI's pastoral visit to Assisi in June 2007. Highlights of the Pope's visit and available English texts may be found on the Vatican Radio website.

The obvious lookback feature today would have been Benedict XVI's beautifully memorable pastoral visit to Assisi in 2007, but as it happens, he did make a very special visit on this day last year...
One year ago...

---

PASTORAL VISIT OF THE HOLY FATHER BENEDICT XVI TO LORETO
on the 50th anniversary of Blessed John XXIII's visit to the Marian shrine
October 4, 2012

09.00 Departure by helicopter from the Vatican

10.00 Arrival at the Centro Giovani Paolo II in Montorso.

10.20 Visit to the Holy House of Nazareth in Loreto
- Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
- Prayer to Our Lady of Loreto.

10.30 HOLY MASS
Piazza della Madonna
(in front of the Basilica of Our Lady of Loreto)
- Homily

13.15 Lunch at the Centrp Giovanni Paolo in Montorso.

17.00 Departure by helicopter for the Vatican

18.00 Arrival at the Vatican heliport

---

The trip was a surprise announcement made in June 2012:



Pope Benedict to visit Loreto
on October 4 on the 50th anniversary
of historic train trip by John XXIII
Adapted from the Italian service of

June 29, 2012


The shrine of Loreto is located on a 450-meter promontory a few miles inland from the Adriatic coast.

Pope Benedict XVI will visit Loreto in the province of Ancona on October 4 to mark the 50th anniversary of Blessed John XXIII's 1962 train trip to Italy's best-known Marian shrine. [6/29/12 P.S. He will be going by helicopter, not by train.]


Medal commemorating John XXIII's 5th year as Pope, highlighting his visit to Loreto and Assisi (their basilicas are seen on the obverse side of the model); and right, the 'Papa buono' on the train to Loreto, with the saturno that he often wore.

Archbishop Giovanni Tonucci, papal delegate, Archbishop and Prelate of Loreto, made the announcement today at the Basilica della Santa Casa (Holy House). [Because of the importance of the shrine, the commune of Loreto and the shrine itself are under a special prelature answerable directly to the Pope, who appoints a personal legate to act as Prelate and Archbishop, and the legate's residence is called the Apostolic Palace.]


The Apostolic Palace is a 17th-century architectural masterpiece that flanks the Basilica of the Holy House. At right, top panel, is the elaborate marble 'box' that houses the Holy House. Below, the altar side and the entrance side of the Holy House.


The church houses a 12x9meter stone and brick structure that Tradition says was Mary's house in Nazareth, transported to Europe, according to legend, by flights of angels,after the crusaders lost their last battle to the Muslim Saracens in the 13th century.

A famous image of the Madonna carved out of black cedarwood and known as Our Lady of Loreto has been venerated at the church for centuries. Pope Benedict offered the traditional Golden Rose tribute to the image andthe shrine when he was there in 2007.

Papa Roncalli had chosen Loreto as the destination for the first trip made outside Rome by a Pope for decades. He did it one week before the opening of the Second Vatican Council.

The train trip was big news in its day, even internationally, and thousands of Italian faithful turned up at the stations along the way to cheer the Pope.

Mons. Tonucci had invited Benedict XVI to come to Loreto for the occasion, and the Pope accepted.

My addendum:
It will be his second trip to Loreto as Pope. As a cardinal, he visited Loreto seven times between 1987-2002, five of them for official business as CDF Prefect (including the celebration of the 'twinning' of Loreto with Joseph Ratzinger's beloved Marian shrine of Altoetting) and twice on a personal visit of devotion (the last time with his brother Georg.



On September 1-2, 2007, Pope Benedict attended an 'Agora' of Italian Catholic youth - some half a million of whom gathered for a prayer vigil and a very moving Q&A with the Pope on Saturday night and Mass the following morning on the plain of Montarso on the Adriatic coast.

The yearly youth 'Agoras' or faith gatherings are sponsored by the Italian bishops' conference. In 2007, they expected at most 350,000 young people to show up at an event that was intended to be a dress rehearsal for WYD in Sydney one year later.

[Re-reading the coverage of the event in the items I put together in PASTORAL VISITS IN ITALY thread of the Papa Ratzinger Forum back in 2007, I realized I had almost forgotten the rave reviews received by Benedict XVI for what he achieved in Loreto by way of his ability to speak to young people - "as if he was a grandfather holding them on his lap." one reporter said - and to challenge them. There was one totally rave review by Marco Politi, of all people, who had not a single negative thing to say in the entire article, and Filippo Di Giacomo who had infamously derided Benedict XVI for producing what he called a monumental flop - Di Giacomo actually used the English word - on his trip to Brazil earlier in 2007, especially when compared to John Paul II's trips there, wrote an article about Benedict in Loreto that was entitled "The shy theologian who is more popular than Wojtyla"! You can check out the Loreto coverage (including backgrounders about Loreto and its history as a shrine) on pp. 4-6 of the PASTORAL VISITS thread http://freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=6675691&p=4&tid=ccf06d095fbe473395abc8ae3eb5e71a63607e225bb8cb23712672ba39d3de49

The Pilgrim Church is Marian

Sept. 29, 2012



Benedict XVI goes to Loreto on the 4th of October, on the 50th anniversary of the famous pilgrimage of Pope John XXIII a week before the solemn opening of the Second Vatican Council. He wishes to commend to the Mother of God the great prayer intentions of the Church at this time — in particular the upcoming Year of Faith and the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization.

This is not the first time that Pope Benedict has gone on pilgrimage to Loreto. He visited the Marian shrine at least seven times as a Cardinal, and already once before as Pope.

Christians believe, according to a centuries-old tradition, that the Holy House enshrined in Loreto wass the humble home of Mary and the Holy Family in Nazareth - therefore a living memorial of the Annunciation and the mystery of the Incarnation. Spiritually and symbolically it is a very appropriate place to prepare oneself for a time of renewal in the mission of proclaiming the Gospel to the world today.

The Second Vatican Council – which was opened and closed on the two Marian feasts of the Immaculate Conception and the Divine Motherhood – devotes the final chapter of the great document on the Church, Lumen gentium, to Mary, “a sign of sure hope and solace to the people of God during its sojourn on earth.” The Church, the Pilgrim People of God, is Marian.

Beginning our journey with Pope Benedict, we, like Blessed John XXIII, humbly strive to relive the mystery and the joy of the Annunciation and the Incarnation of the Son of God, so that we can live the month of the Synod and a Year of grace accompanied and encouraged by Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother.





For a full review of Benedict XVI's visit to Assisi on June 17, 2007 - to mark the eighth centenary of the death of Francis, you may look through the 2 pages devoted to it in the PASTORAL VISITS TO ITALY thread of the PAPA RATZINGER fORUM
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/d/6675691/PASTORAL-VISITS-IN-ITALY-/discussion... (and the next page after it)
Afterwards, Italian writers said that the burden of Benedict XVI's discourses about St. Francis when he was in Assisi served to re-introduce Francis as the exemplary man of God and alter Christus - this man who was not even a priest but only a deacon - to the Third Millennium in order to rescue him from the postcard-and-tinfoil image of him as poster boy of the Flower People, peaceniks and environuts of the late 20th century...

I thought I would focus today on the Oct. 4, 2012, visit to Loreto, but i am irreesistibly compelled by the material from the pastoral visit to Assisi five years earlier, so I find myself leading off with Assisi recollections. Starting with the immediate impressions of the visit...

PILGRIMAGE AND PASTORAL VISIT TO ASSISI, June 17, 2006



19/06/2007
Many Italian newspapers today, including Osservatore Romano and Avvenire, published editorials and commentary about the Holy Father's statements in Assisi Sunday - not so much about his impassioned appeal for peace and competent peacemakers in the Middle East, but for the fresh wind that he brought to dispel the dubious clouds of false incense around a so-called 'spirit of Assisi' that followed the inter-religious World Day of Prayer for Peace held there in 1986.

(If you have not yet done so, please read the texts of the Papal addresses in Assisi. They are truly beautiful and memorable, as most of the texts he personally writes are, but the variety of ways in which the Pope presents the life of Francis and his message, depending on the audience he addresses, is most instructive and illuminating.)


Here are translations of what I thought were the the three best editorials:

Fresh wind from Assisi
By Giuseppe Di Fazio

Ecologists and pacifists have taken advantage. So have intellectuals and directors who have reduced to tatters the figure of Francis of Assisi, unilaterally and arbitrarily usurping his message. As have those Christians and even devotees of the saint who have 'mutilated' him [a term used by the Pope Sunday], reducing 'the spirit of Assisi' to nothing more than a do-goodism for all seasons, the antechamber of religious indifferentism, and the pretext for publicity-seeking marches of all colors and varieties.

Benedict XVI, visiting Assisi Sunday, meant to pick up the pieces, recompose the entire Franciscan mosaic, restore the essential link between the values preached by Francis and the root of his life choice - Christ.

Without having made that radical decision to follow Christ, all the Franciscan themes - respect for nature, peace, dialog, the choice of poverty - would be simply words, good intentions. And the relationship among religions is reduced to nothing more than fragile irenism.

The message of Assisi, as re-stated by Pope Benedict, sounds explosively relevant in its simplicity - radical for young people who are looking for unadulterated answers to their questions about the absolute, and prophetic for a world that is increasingly torn apart by armed conflicts.

It was said in the past that Cardinal Ratzinger was critical of Papa Wojtyla's initiative for an inter-religious summit in Assisi.

On Sunday, Benedict XVI clearly showed he is in continuity with his predecessor, while clearing up the equivocations that have been generated by that event.

As he pointed out, a 'mutilated' Saint Francis also corresponds to a 'diminished' Christ, one who is reduced to a mere prophet of values, "admired in his extraordinary humanity, but rejected in the profound mystery of his divinity."

In Assisi, Benedict XVI called for a 'high-profile line', undiscounted and unadulterated, in proclaiming through words and example, the true spirit of Assisi.

A world that is drifting violently is not served by warmed-over, 'do good' platitudes.

Here is the front-page editorial from the Osservatore Romano issue of June 18-19, 2007:

Benedict XVI re-delivers
the message and image of St. Francis
for the third millennium



He re-consigned to the Third Millennium the life and witness of Francis. He re-stated for Assisi its misison of welcome, dialog, and reconciliation. And he re-addressed mankind with his strongest invocation for peace, tragically shattered today by a blind perversity towards violence and war.

A pilgrim in the footsteps of the Poverello, Benedict XVI issued from Assisi a message of great ecclesiastical breadth and of profound social relevance. By his words, he confronted the conscience of the world with the fearless and demanding message of Assisi's 'convert of love.'

With his Magisterium, he reaffirmed the truth of the Christological and evangelical message of a man who belonged totally to God and so belonged totally to others, who loved God fully and therefore loved all men fully.

In Francis's humble but welcoming hometown, the Pope paid tribute to a home for humanity, an oasis of hope, a pulpit for peace.

There were so many outstanding moments that marked Benedict XVI's day in Assisi. But there was one, in particular, which showed the most intimate core of his being.

During his encounter with the youth of Umbria, the Pope recalled his predecessor John Paul II. That brought on long, intense and warm applause from the thousands of young people who were gathered in front of the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. From the heart of the Successor of Peter came a simple, "GRAZIE!"

Benedict then continued by saying "Be my joy, as you were a joy to John Paul II."* And the assembly responded by chanting out theIr affection for him, "BE-NE-DET-TO! BE-NE-DET-TO!", whose joyous echoes seemed to resound throughout the whole region.

A father's 'Thank you' and a filial 'Benedetto!' A meeting of souls, a harmony of hearts. A delicate, touching ecclesiastical family moment.

*[These are the words in the text released by the Vatican yesterday, but when Angela Ambroggeti reported for PETRUS last Sunday, the words she quoted were "Be with me, as you were with John Paul II" - which is very poignant, and somehow stronger - because more 'naked' - than saying "Be my joy...", as poetic as this may be.]

]DIM=8pt]And finally, the editorial from Avvenire today:

Pacifism, environmentalism,
'the spirit of Assisi' -
all must be re-centered around Christ
By Luigi Geninazzi

Papa Ratzinger has re-launched the spirit of Assisi. He did it from the Piazza of the Lower Basilica where John Paul II had prayed for peace in 1986 alongside religious leaders from all over the world.

"Let the weapons be silent, put an end to the conflicts which bring bloodshed to the world" was the 'urgent and heartfelt' appeal that Benedict XVI made Sunday, echoing that raised by his predecessor in January of 2002: "Never again war! Never again violence! Never again terrorism!"

In Assisi last Sunday, one could perceive not only a spiritual continuity but even a physical super-imposition of Benedict XVI's figure on that of John Paul II. The same cry of condemnation, the same anguish "for all those who weep, suffer and die because of wars", the same dramatic plea to listen to each other's reasons.

Because, today more than ever, everything is tangled in a murderous spiral of violence - and from Iraq to Palestine, passing through Lebanon, civil war threatens to engulf all of the Middle East.

"To put an end to so much pain and restore life and dignity to persons, institutions and peoples," there is an urgent need for "responsible and sincere dialog, sustained by the generous support of the international community," said the Pope.

The Holy See will not tire of reproposing 'a negotiated and regional solution", which the Pope last discussed with President Bush, as the only sensible option after the failure of unilateral strategies and the use of force.

Benedict XVI also wished explicitly to refresh "the icon of Assis as a city of dialog and peace." And he did this on the very special occasion of the 8th centenary of Francis's conversion, precisely to underline that without that conversion to Christ, there could never have been a 'spirit of Assisi.'

The Pope's message was: if we truly want to understand the greatness of the Poverello, we cannot do this only on tghe basis of his love for peace and for nature.

"Francis is a true master in these matters, but he is, because for him, it all comes from Christ," says the Pope, in effect denouncing the misuse of the 'spirit of Assisi' by pacifists and environmentalists of every kind.

In the direct and clear words typical of the Ratzinger Pontificate, we are told that "Francis suffers multilation when he is used simply to attest to values that are undoubtedly important, but forgetting that the heart of his life was his choice of Christ." In this context, the desire for peace has its essential basis in conversion - "not what we might call a social conversion, but a true religious experience."

Francis's real message is very relevant today and overwhelming - he reminds us that to be truly 'a man for others', one must first be 'a man of God'.

And his message of peace and brotherhood has a particular resonance in the Middle East - where once, in the middle of the ferocious clash of civilizations that the Crusades represented - Francis faced the Muslim Sultan of Egypt and spoke to him of universal brotherhood.

But today in the Holy Land, persons use the name of God as a hammer to incite others to hatred and to violence. The cause of peace itself is badly in need of conversion.

It is not an easy message for fanatics and fundamentalists who believe only in themselves.

But this - and the centrality of Christ in all causes for the good of mankind -is the Spirit of Assisi that Papa Ratzinger has redefined, in the name of St. Francis and in continuity with Papa Wojtyla's prophetic intuition.

In addition, this was Sandro Magister's take:


The Holy Father at the GA on June 20, 2007.

Why Saint Francis is a 'True Master'
for today's Christians -
as is Saint Augustine
In Assisi and in Pavia, the destinations of his two latest trips within Italy,
Benedict XVI proposes the two great converts as models.
And he criticizes their modern 'mutilations'.
by Sandro Magister
Translated from


ROMA, June 20, 2007 - Benedict XVI dedicated his two most recent trips in Italy, to Pavia and Assisi, to two saints of the highest caliber and of exceptional influence in the Church's history: Augustine and Francis.

And in both cases, pope Joseph Ratzinger focused attention upon a precise moment in the lives of the two saints: their conversion.

Conversion - the pope explained - is the crucial turning point in the existence of every Christian. In it, the life of each man takes new form from Jesus Christ, to whom he entrusts himself. From then on, his life is distinguished by its being marked by Christ.

So if Saint Francis 'is a true master' in the search for peace, in the protection of nature, in the promotion of dialogue among all men, he is so in a unique way, which cannot be mutilated: "he is so, beginning from Christ."

And therefore the 'spirit of Assisi' has nothing to do with religious indifferentism, precisely because the life and message of Francis 'depend so visibly upon Christ.'

"It could not be an evangelical or Franciscan attitude to fail to combine welcome, dialogue, and respect for all with the certainty of faith that every Christian, just the same as the saint of Assisi, is bound to cultivate, proclaiming Christ as the way, truth, and life of man (cf. John 14:6), the only Savior of the world."

Already on previous occasions, Benedict XVI had criticized the 'abuses' and 'betrayals' that, in his judgment, distort the exemplary figure of Francis.

But on Sunday, June 17, in Assisi, the pope returned to preaching in a more organic manner on the person of the saint, and in particular on his conversion, the eight hundredth anniversary of which falls in 2007.

He did this above all in the homily at the Mass. As he had also done in Pavia on Sunday, April 22, remembering Saint Augustine, who is buried in that city.

But also in the other addresses of the day spent in Assisi, the pope insisted on presenting the saint's authentic face, pushing aside the disfigurements. For example, when he addressed this appeal to the priests, deacons, and religious men and women of the city:

"The millions of pilgrims who pass through these streets, drawn by the charisma of Francis, must be helped to grasp the essential nucleus of the Christian life and to strive for its 'highest measure,' which is sanctity. It is not enough that they admire Francis: through him, they must have the chance to encounter Christ, to confess him and love him with 'upright faith, certain hope, and perfect charity' (Prayer of Francis before the Crucifix, 1: FF 276).

"The Christians of our time find themselves increasingly before the tendency to accept a diminished Christ, one admired for his extraordinary humanity, but rejected in the profound mystery of his divinity.

"Francis himself undergoes a sort of mutilation when he is called upon as a witness to values that are indeed important and appreciated by modern culture, but forgetting that the profound choice, we might say the heart of his life, is the choice of Christ.

"In Assisi, there is more need than ever for an emphatic pastoral strategy. To this end you, the priests and deacons, and you, the persons of the consecrated life, must have a strong sense of the privilege and responsibility of living in this grace-filled spot.

"It is true that those who pass through this city receive a beneficial message, even if only from its 'stones' and from its history. But this does not exempt from the need for a robust spiritual outreach, which could also help in facing the many seductions of the relativism that characterizes the culture of our time."

Here, then, are the two homilies that Benedict XVI dedicated to the two great converts Francis and Augustine. Two homilies that are characteristic examples of this pope's preaching, always closely connected to the liturgy of the day:

Magister then posts translations of the homilies. The Pope's homily on Francis may be found in the Assisi coverage on this thread (preceding page), as well as in the HOMILIES, MESSAGES, DISCOURSES thread,
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=354537&p=15
where the homily on Augustine in Pavia was also posted on the day it was delivered
freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=354537&p=13

====================================================================

Allow me to point out, also, that:

The Pope devotes two pages in JESUS OF NAZARETH, pp. 78-79 in the English edition, to discussing Francis as 'the most intensely lived illustration' of the First Beatitude ("Blessed are the poor in spirit...") in the history of Faith.

He ends his discussion by saying: "It is above all by looking at Francis of Assisi that we see clearly what the words 'Kingdom of God' mean. Francis stood totally within the Church, and at the same time it is in figures such as he that the Church grows toward the goal that lies in the future, and yet is already present: The Kingdom of God is drawing near."

THE POPE IN LORETO
Oct. 4, 2012




The Pope enters the enshrined Holy House of Nazareth inside the Basilica of Our Lady of Loreto, below (top photo); bottom panel, the Pope leaving the Basilica.




Entrusting to Mary
'a time of grace'
for the Church

Oct. 4, 2012

One week ahead of the opening of the 13th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Pope Benedict XVI travelled to the Marian Shrine of Loreto, in Italy, to entrust the Assembly and the upcoming Year of Faith to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

More than 10,000 people packed the Piazza in front of the Shrine of the Holy House of Loreto to greet Pope Benedict XVI as he made his second visit as Pope to the famous Basilica.

The Holy Father was following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Blessed John XXIII who, exactly fifty years earlier, had visited Loreto to entrust to our Blessed Mother the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council.

In his homily, Pope Benedict said that he, too, had come on pilgrimage “to entrust to the Mother of God two important ecclesial initiatives: the Year of Faith, which will begin in a week, on October 11, on the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, and the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which I have convened this October with the theme ‘The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith’.”

The Pope said, “It is precisely here at Loreto that we have the opportunity to attend the school of Mary who was called ‘blessed’ because she ‘believed’.”

This Shrine, he continued, “build around her earthly home, preserves the memory of the moment when the angel of the Lord came to Mary with the great announcement of the Incarnation, and she gave her positive reply.”

In the Annunciation, Pope Benedict noted, God waits for Mary’s ‘yes’. God “has created a free partner in dialogue, from whom he requests a reply in complete liberty.” Mary’s ‘yes’ is the fruit of divine grace; but, the Pope says, “grace does not eliminate freedom; on the contrary, it creates and sustains it.”

The Holy Father concluded his homily by entrusting to “the Most Holy Mother of God all the difficulties affecting our world as it seeks serenity and peace, the problems of the many families who look anxiously to the future, the aspirations of young people at the start of their lives, the suffering of those awaiting signs or decisions of solidarity and love. I also wish to place in the hands of the Mother of God this special time of grace for the Church, now opening up before us.”




Here is Vatican Radio's translation of the Holy father's homily:

---

Your Eminences,
Dear Brother Bishops,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,

On 4 October 1962, Blessed John XXIII came as a pilgrim to this Shrine to entrust to the Virgin Mary the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, due to begin a week later.

On that occasion, with deep filial devotion to the Mother of God, he addressed her in these words:

---

Again today, and in the name of the entire episcopate, I ask you, sweetest Mother, as Help of Bishops, to intercede for me as Bishop of Rome and for all the bishops of the world, to obtain for us the grace to enter the Council Hall of Saint Peter’s Basilica, as the Apostles and the first disciples of Jesus entered the Upper Room: with one heart, one heartbeat of love for Christ and for souls, with one purpose only, to live and to sacrifice ourselves for the salvation of individuals and peoples.

Thus, by your maternal intercession, in the years and the centuries to come, may it be said that the grace of God prepared, accompanied and crowned the twenty-first Ecumenical Council, filling all the children of the holy Church with a new fervour, a new impulse to generosity, and a renewed firmness of purpose.” (AAS 54 [1962], 727).

---

Fifty years on, having been called by divine Providence to succeed that unforgettable Pope to the See of Peter, I too have come on pilgrimage to entrust to the Mother of God two important ecclesial initiatives: the Year of Faith, which will begin in a week, on 11 October, on the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, and the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which I have convened this October with the theme “The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith”.

Dear friends, to all of you I offer my most cordial greetings. I thank the Most Reverend Giovanni Tonucci, Archbishop of Loreto, for his warm words of welcome. I greet the other bishops present, the priests, the Capuchin Fathers, to whom the pastoral care of this shrine is entrusted, and the religious sisters.

I also salute Dr Paolo Niccoletti, Mayor of Loreto, thanking him for his courteous words, and I greet the representatives of the government and the civil and military authorities here present. My thanks also go to those who have generously offered their assistance to make my pilgrimage possible.

As I said in my Apostolic Letter announcing the Year of Faith, “I wish to invite my brother bishops from all over the world to join the Successor of Peter, during this time of spiritual grace that the Lord offers us, in recalling the precious gift of faith” (Porta Fidei, 8).

It is precisely here at Loreto that we have the opportunity to attend the school of Mary who was called “blessed” because she “believed” (Lk 1:45).

This Shrine, built around her earthly home, preserves the memory of the moment when the angel of Lord came to Mary with the great announcement of the Incarnation, and she gave her reply. This humble home is a physical, tangible witness to the greatest event in our history, the Incarnation; the Word became flesh and Mary, the handmaid of the Lord, is the privileged channel through which God came to dwell among us (cf. Jn 1:14).

Mary offered her very body; she placed her entire being at the disposal of God’s will, becoming the “place” of his presence, a “place” of dwelling for the Son of God.

We are reminded here of the words of the Psalm with which, according to the Letter to the Hebrews, Christ began his earthly life, saying to the Father, “Sacrifices and offering you have not desired, but you have prepared a body for me… Behold, I have come to do your will, O God” (10:5,7).

To the Angel who reveals God’s plan for her, Mary replies in similar words: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).

The will of Mary coincides with the will of the Son in the Father’s unique project of love and, in her, heaven and earth are united, God the Creator is united to his creature. God becomes man, and Mary becomes a “living house” for the Lord, a temple where the Most High dwells.

Here at Loreto fifty years ago, Blessed John XXIII issued an invitation to contemplate this mystery, to “reflect on that union of heaven and earth, which is the purpose of the Incarnation and Redemption”, and he went on to affirm that the aim of the Council itself was to spread ever wider the beneficent impact of the Incarnation and Redemption on all spheres of life (cf. AAS 54 [1962], 724).

This invitation resounds today with particular urgency. In the present crisis affecting not only the economy but also many sectors of society, the Incarnation of the Son of God speaks to us of how important man is to God, and God to man.

Without God, man ultimately chooses selfishness over solidarity and love, material things over values, having over being. We must return to God, so that man may return to being man.

With God, even in difficult times or moments of crisis, there is always a horizon of hope: the Incarnation tells us that we are never alone, that God has come to humanity and that he accompanies us.

The idea of the Son of God dwelling in the “living house”, the temple which is Mary, leads us to another thought: we must recognize that where God dwells, all are “at home”; wherever Christ dwells, his brothers and sisters are no longer strangers.

Mary, who is the Mother of Christ, is also our mother, and she open to us the door to her home, she helps us enter into the will of her Son. So it is faith which gives us a home in this world, which brings us together in one family and which makes all of us brothers and sisters.

As we contemplate Mary, we must ask if we too wish to be open to the Lord, if we wish to offer him our life as his dwelling place; or if we are afraid that the presence of God may somehow place limits on our freedom, if we wish to set aside a part of our life in such a way that it belongs only to us.

Yet it is precisely God who liberates our liberty, he frees it from being closed in on itself, from the thirst for power, possessions, and domination; he opens it up to the dimension which completely fulfils it: the gift of self, of love, which in turn becomes service and sharing.

Faith lets us reside, or dwell, but it also lets us walk on the path of life. The Holy House of Loreto contains an important teaching in this respect as well. Its location on a street is well known. At first this might seem strange: after all, a house and a street appear mutually exclusive.

In reality, it is precisely here that an unusual message about this House has been preserved. It is not a private house, nor does it belong to a single person or a single family, rather it is an abode open to everyone placed, as it were, on our street.

So here in Loreto we find a house which lets us stay, or dwell, and which at the same time lets us continue, or journey, and reminds us that we are pilgrims, that we must always be on the way to another dwelling, towards our final home, the Eternal City, the dwelling place of God and the people he has redeemed (cf. Rev 21:3).

There is one more important point in the Gospel account of the Annunciation which I would like to underline, one which never fails to strike us: God asks for mankind’s “yes”; he has created a free partner in dialogue, from whom he requests a reply in complete liberty.

In one of his most celebrated sermons, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux “recreates”, as it were, the scene where God and humanity wait for Mary to say “yes”. Turning to her he begs: “The angel awaits your response, as he must now return to the One who sent him… O Lady, give that reply which the earth, the underworld and the very heavens await. Just as the King and Lord of all wished to behold your beauty, in the same way he earnestly desires your word of consent… Arise, run, open up! Arise with faith, run with your devotion, open up with your consent!” (In laudibus Virginis Matris, Hom. IV,8: Opera omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 4, 1966, p.53f).

God asks for Mary’s free consent that he may become man. To be sure, the “yes” of the Virgin is the fruit of divine grace. But grace does not eliminate freedom; on the contrary it creates and sustains it. Faith removes nothing from the human creature, rather it permits his full and final realization.

Dear brothers and sisters, on this pilgrimage in the footsteps of Blessed John XXIII – and which comes, providentially, on the day in which the Church remembers Saint Francis of Assisi, a veritable “living Gospel” – I wish to entrust to the Most Holy Mother of God all the difficulties affecting our world as it seeks serenity and peace, the problems of the many families who look anxiously to the future, the aspirations of young people at the start of their lives, the suffering of those awaiting signs or decisions of solidarity and love.

I also wish to place in the hands of the Mother of God this special time of grace for the Church, now opening up before us. Mother of the “yes”, you who heard Jesus, speak to us of him; tell us of your journey, that we may follow him on the path of faith; help us to proclaim him, that each person may welcome him and become the dwelling place of God. Amen!

---

Belated as it is by two days, I still wish to continue the posts I had in mind to do in connection with the current Pope's recent visit to Assisi. Even if, for some reason, the much touted big pilgrimage to venerate the saint whose name he took appears to have received relatively muted coverage even in the Francismanic media, or on Vatican Radio, for that matter.

Benedict XVI's pastoral visit in 2007 was portrayed by the MSM as the theologian Pope's attempt to reverse the distorted message about St. Francis and inter-religious dialog that had been defined by the progressivists as 'the 'spirit of Assisi' after John Paul II hosted the first inter-religious day of prayer for peace in Assisi in 1986. The term was to become as ubiquitous and grossly manipulated as the 'spirit of Vatican II' they had invented to justify any and all self-serving interpretations they wished to attribute to the teachings of Vatican II.

The more thoughtful commentators in the Italian media, on the other hand, saw in Benedict's visit - and the thread that ran through all his discourses on Francis of Assisi - as even more fundamental than just unmasking the vacuity of the so-called 'spirit of Assisi'. He was more concerned with rescuing the image of Francis of Assisi from the simpleminded nature lover and peacenik that he had been reduced to by the counterculture generation in adopting him as their 'patron saint' (as if he would have ever sanctioned their do-as-you-please hedonism in everything from sex to the liturgy), completely igorning or ignorant of what his whole life meant and why he has been called the alter Christus. In his discourses in Assisi in 2007, Benedict XVI made Francis come to life in specific details and instances that made those speeches so fascinating as the series of discourses he had delivered about St. Augustine in Vigevano and Pavia a few months earlier.

As indeed he did on every occasion during his Pontificate whenever he mentioned St. Francis, the saint he most alluded to after Augustine. (Joseph Ratzinger obviously came to study the life of Francis in depth when he was working on his Habilitationschrift on St. Bonaventure, Francis's greatest successor as head of the Franciscan order. I had always thought the Vatican publishing house should have anthologized all of Benedict's St. Francis texts, including his catecheses and the touching pages in JESUS OF NAZARETH Vol.1 when he cites St. Francis as the embodiment of the First Beatitude. And all this long before anyone ever imagined he would be succeded by someone who would take the name of Francis.)

But the advent of a Pope named Francis has resurrected a new reduction and falsification of St. Francis to someone who wanted the Church to be poor, literally, as if material poverty - and voluntary impoverishment as spiritual mortification - had been the primary lesson he had left the world. along with peace, universal love and inter=religious dialog, snippets of his message that derive from its all-encompassing center which was living in imitation of Christ...

This reductive view is the sense in which the AP reported Pope Francis's visit to Assisi, by sketching out the modern Catholic liberal's vision for the Catholic Church as the programmatic pillars for this Pontificate:

Pope highlights his goals for the Church
in pilgrimage to his name saint's birthplace


ASSISI, Italy, Oct. 4, 2013 — Pope Francis broke bread with the poor and embraced the disabled on a pilgrimage to his namesake’s hometown Friday, urging the faithful to follow the example of the 13th-century St. Francis, who renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and service to the poor.

According to tradition, God told St. Francis to “repair my house,” and the first pope to take the saint’s name has made clear that he sees that as his own mission as well.

For Francis, that means reaching out to the most marginalized among the church’s 1.2 billion followers [Because presumably the Popes before him did not do that at all??? The Church's social doctrine since the late 19th century has been to reach out and seek to alleviate the plight of all the 'marginalized' who are in that conditionnot because of the Church but because of ethe wider society],, reforming the broken Vatican bureaucracy, and allowing the faithful to shake things up in their dioceses — even at the annoyance of their bishops — if that’s what it takes to better spread God’s word.[Bad enough we have post-Vatican II 'ministrants' who bustle about more self-importantly than the most pompous priests, so now laymen are encouraged to 'make a mess' (as he told WYD participants last July) if they have to in order to take Church matters into their own hands, never mind what their bishops think! Why do we still bother to educate and form priests then? And whatever happened to DIALOG! before doing anything drastic? Are the faithful such reliable exemplars that they can be expected to have any self-discipline and to respect the borders between laity and consecrated ministry when the Supreme Commander gives them the green light to make a mess in order to take things into their own hands? Is self-discipline even compatible at all with 'making a mess'? But then this Pope has said he prefers a Church where accidents happen due to people 'moving' for the sake of moving than a Church that is supposedly at a standstill.]

After all, the pope said, St. Francis was a radical himself in his complete devotion to his faith — a model that can serve Catholics today. [Yes, dut he didn't tell his people to go out and 'make a mess' it they had to!]

Here are the main goals Pope Francis has set out for his church, highlighted during his visit to the hilltop town of Assisi, whose native son has inspired his papacy:

A CHURCH ‘THAT IS POOR AND FOR THE POOR’
Francis had lunch with a group of poor at a soup kitchen after demanding that the faithful “strip” themselves of their worldly attachment to wealth, which he said is killing the Church and its souls. [(1) Surely there is rich irony here that such an exhortation should be made = even if it is not addressed to them - to an audience that is already stripped of everythiug material and much of the spiritual!; and (2) for most of its 2000 years, the Church has 'amassed' material wealth that has rarely if ever been at the expense of the poor, and has mostly used that wealth to be able to send out missionaries to bring the Word of God as well as material assistance to the 'peripheries' of the world, centuries before Cardinal Bergoglio came along to preach this as if no one had ever thought about it before in the Church, or even done it! It is unfortunate that the secular world has been using this unfair monomania of Pope Francis about 'a rich church that cares not a whit for the poor' to reinforce their false stereotypes about the Church, the Popes and the clergy. They love this Pope who is 'manufacturing' propaganda for them, as it were. In return for which, of course, they make propaganda for him, so it makes for the coziest of all sweetheart deals.]

He delivered that exhortation during the most evocative stop of the day, in the simple room where St. Francis stripped off his clothes, renounced his wealth and vowed to live a life of poverty.

Since becoming pope in March, Francis has made it clear that one of his principal objectives is a church that is humble, looks out for the poorest and brings them hope. [The implication being that the Church has never been humble, never looked out for the poorest, never brought them hope! Even if this is the AP's slant (and that of the media in general), it is one that is implicit and even at times explicit and spurred on by what this Pope says, with a breathtakingly Pharisaic 'sanctimony' - I can think of no other word - ospecially with regard to his predecessor Popes, that no one dares call by name.] The “slum pope,” as he is known because of his work in Argentina’s shantytowns, recently denounced the “idolatry” of money and encouraged those without the “dignity” of work.

A CHURCH THAT WELCOMES AND DOESN’T JUDGE
Francis’s first stop in Assisi was to an institute that cares for gravely disabled children, who in the words of the director are often seen as “stones cast aside,” invisible and neglected by the world. Francis caressed and kissed each child, saying their “scars need to be recognized and listened to.” It was part of the simple message of love that he has brought to others often considered outcasts, such as drug addicts and convicts.

His “who am I to judge?” comment about gays over the summer was another reflection of this message of merciful welcome. It represented a radical shift in tone for the Vatican. Catholic teaching holds that all people should be treated with dignity and respect, so Francis was making no change in doctrine. But church teaching also holds that gay acts are “intrinsically disordered” — a point Francis has neglected to emphasize in favor of a message of inclusion. [1) The Church has never had any policy of exclusion for anyone, not even murderers which does not mean she condones murder any more than she condones homosexual practices - which is the point of contention here, not the fact of being homosexual. And 2) This Pope's avowals of openness and being non-judgmental do not change the objective fact that homosexual practices are an intrinsic disorder of nature. So now, what does he propose to do with all the actively gay Catholic homosexuals, some if not many of them priests and bishops? "Follow what your conscience tells you about what is good or bad, and God will forgive everything"?

2) The disturbing corollary to this Pope's repeated reminders that God is merciful is that he makes it appear we don't have to do anything to earn that mercy, that all we have to do is ask for it and go on doing as we please! Yes, he also preaches that we must all learn to bear the Cross as Jesus did, but he never connects that to the 'mercy' thread, - as if mercy can be had by all without having to bear the Cross. Why did the saints have to bear their crosses then? Whatever happened to that wonderful Biblical concept called 'fear of God' which is the only 'fear' we should have?

It almost seems to me like the Pope preaches the Cross to those of us who already know our faith and seek to live it compels us to share the Cross of Christ, and preaches mercy to the weak and wavering, the lapsed Catholics and dropouts, and anyone looking in who might be interested in order to draw them in. And then what? Then they have to learn like all the rest of us that God's infinite mercy, while freely given, must still be 'earned' - each of us, rich and poor, have to pass through the eye of a needle, in a sense, to enter the Kingdom of God. But will this 'missionary strategy' work at all? Both audiences the Pope tries to reach all read the same papers and are exposed to the same media. Is anyone fooled or taken in - other than the media whose agenda the Pope serves and vice-versa?

After Jesus forgives, he says, "Go and sin no more!" We do not find that implied at all in the variety of 'open arms' messages coming from this Pope. The impression given is, in fact, that actively homosexual persons and remarried divorcees will get preferential treatment in his Church because they will be exempt from basic rules that the rest of us are expected to follow, They can go on with homosexual activities and in technical bigamy without being considered sinful.

Just as I always found the term 'preferential option for the poor' sickeningly discriminatory = apart from being unnecessary to begin with, if one lives by the Gospel - I am perplexed, to say the least, at this implication of a double standard for 'sin' in the Church of Pope Francis.

The Church doesn't 'judge' as the AP would put it - only God does that. But she does have to remind man constantly about good and evil, and the commandment of love that must inform all our actions in this life and leads us to do what is good.]

A FEMININE CHURCH
Francis has called for a greater role for women in the governance of the church, while ruling out female ordination. He says the church itself is female, that Jesus Christ was married to the church and that Mary is more important than all the apostles.

On Friday, Francis paid special attention to the women of the church, visiting the cloistered Sisters of St. Clare, an order founded by one of St. Francis’S followers. In the Basilica of St. Clare, Pope Francis told the nuns that they must be mothers to the church and be joyful.

“It makes me sad when I find sisters who aren’t joyful,” he lamented. “They might smile, but with just a smile they could be flight attendants!”

He showed that same sense of humor later when he told a story about a mother who lamented that her 30-year-old son still hadn’t gotten married — a reference to a generation of Italian men who seem unwilling to move out: “Signora,” Francis recalled telling her. “Stop ironing his shirts!”

One of the stories I came across in recent days was about Cardinal Ratzinger and statements he made in the 1990s expressing the hope that the College of Cardinals could become open to women, because he thought that Mother Teresa was one who could and should be a cardinal without having to be a priest. But of course, since the cast-iron image of Cardinal Ratzinger at the time was of an obscurantist throwback to the Middle Ages, that kind of anecdote was never made public!

Anyway, back to the Pope's visit to Assisi - here is Vatican Radio's translation of his homily at the Mass in the Piazza of the Basilica of St. Francis:

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POPE FRANCIS'S HOMILY
Assisi, Oct. 4, 2013

“I give you thanks, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to babes” (Mt 11:25).

Peace and all good to each and every one of you! With this Franciscan greeting I thank you for being here, in this Square so full of history and faith, to pray together.

Today, I too have come, like countless other pilgrims, to give thanks to the Father for all that he wished to reveal to one of the “little ones” mentioned in today’s Gospel: Francis, the son of a wealthy merchant of Assisi.

His encounter with Jesus led him to strip himself of an easy and carefree life in order to espouse “Lady Poverty” and to live as a true son of our heavenly Father. This decision of Saint Francis was a radical way of imitating Christ: he clothed himself anew, putting on Christ, who, though he was rich, became poor in order to make us rich by his poverty (cf. 2 Cor 8:9). In all of Francis’s life, love for the poor and the imitation of Christ in his poverty were inseparably united, like the two sides of a coin.

What does Saint Francis’s witness tell us today? What does he have to say to us, not merely with words – that is easy enough – but by his life?

1. His first and most essential witness is this: that being a Christian means having a living relationship with the person of Jesus; it means putting on Christ, being conformed to him.

Where did Francis’s journey to Christ begin? It began with the gaze of the crucified Jesus. With letting Jesus look at us at the very moment that he gives his life for us and draws us to himself.

Francis experienced this in a special way in the Church of San Damiano, as he prayed before the cross which I too will have an opportunity to venerate.

On that cross, Jesus is depicted not as dead, but alive! Blood is flowing from his wounded hands, feet and side, but that blood speaks of life. Jesus’s eyes are not closed but open, wide open: he looks at us in a way that touches our hearts.

The cross does not speak to us about defeat and failure; paradoxically, it speaks to us about a death which is life, a death which gives life, for it speaks to us of love, the love of God incarnate, a love which does not die, but triumphs over evil and death.

When we let the crucified Jesus gaze upon us, we are re-created, we become “a new creation”. Everything else starts with this: the experience of transforming grace, the experience of being loved for no merits of our own, in spite of our being sinners. That is why Saint Francis could say with Saint Paul: “Far be it for me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal 6:14).

We turn to you, Francis, and we ask you: Teach us to remain before the cross, to let the crucified Christ gaze upon us, to let ourselves be forgiven, and recreated by his love.

2. In today’s Gospel we heard these words: “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Mt 11:28-29).

This is the second witness that Francis gives us: that everyone who follows Christ receives true peace, the peace that Christ alone can give, a peace which the world cannot give. Many people, when they think of Saint Francis, think of peace; very few people however go deeper.

What is the peace which Francis received, experienced and lived, and which he passes on to us? It is the peace of Christ, which is born of the greatest love of all, the love of the cross. It is the peace which the Risen Jesus gave to his disciples when he stood in their midst and said: “Peace be with you!”, and in saying this, he showed them his wounded hands and his pierced side (cf. Jn 20:19-20).

Franciscan peace is not something saccharine. Hardly! That is not the real Saint Francis! Nor is it a kind of pantheistic harmony with forces of the cosmos… That is not Franciscan either; it is a notion some people have invented!

The peace of Saint Francis is the peace of Christ, and it is found by those who “take up” their “yoke”, namely, Christ’s commandment: Love one another as I have loved you (cf. Jn 13:34; 15:12). This yoke cannot be borne with arrogance, presumption or pride, but only with meekness and humbleness of heart.

We turn to you, Francis, and we ask you: Teach us to be “instruments of peace”, of that peace which has its source in God, the peace which Jesus has brought us.

3. “Praised may you be, Most High, All-powerful God, good Lord… by all your creatures.” This is the beginning of Saint Francis’s Canticle. Love for all creation, for its harmony.

Saint Francis of Assisi bears witness to the need to respect all that God has created, and that men and women are called to safeguard and protect, but above all he bears witness to respect and love for every human being.

God created the world to be a place where harmony and peace can flourish. Harmony and peace! Francis was a man of harmony and peace. From this City of Peace, I repeat with all the strength and the meekness of love:

Let us respect creation, let us not be instruments of destruction! Let us respect each human being. May there be an end to armed conflicts which cover the earth with blood; may the clash of arms be silenced; and everywhere may hatred yield to love, injury to pardon, and discord to unity.

Let us listen to the cry of all those who are weeping, who are suffering and who are dying because of violence, terrorism or war, in the Holy Land, so dear to Saint Francis, in Syria, throughout the Middle East and everywhere in the world.

We turn to you, Francis, and we ask you: Obtain for us God’s gift of harmony and peace in this our world!

Finally, I cannot forget the fact that today Italy celebrates Saint Francis as her patron saint. The traditional offering of oil for the votive lamp, which this year is given by the Region of Umbria, is an expression of this. Let us pray for Italy, that everyone will always work for the common good, and look more to what unites us, rather than what divides us.

I make my own the prayer of Saint Francis for Assisi, for Italy and for the world: “I pray to you, Lord Jesus Christ, Father of mercies: Do not look upon our ingratitude, but always keep in mind the surpassing goodness which you have shown to this City. Grant that it may always be the home of men and women who know you in truth and who glorify your most holy and glorious name, now and for all ages. Amen.

---

The Pope starts out with a beautiful reflection on the Cross of San Damiano, except that it ends up considering the Cross primarily as an icon for meditation that can cast sanctifying grace on the beholder. Beautiful, but avoiding the more literal and common association Christians have when contemplating the Cross. Meanie me, I thought to myself, do things like living in Santa Marta, wearing black shoes instead of red, riding a Fiat instead of a Mercedes, really amount to sharing the Cross of Christ, or even help alleviate one man's hunger?

I like the line about wearing Christ. It reminds me of an OR headline a few years back when Spanish journalist Juan Manuel Prada wrote a [iece to debunk the media myth that Benedict XVI wore Prada shoes [no relation to the journalist] - a double whammy from MSM to 'prove' that B16 had expensive tastes and to exploit the inevitable association with the book/film title 'The devil wore Prada' and the derived syllogism, ergo, Benedict XVI is the devil. Prada's article was entitled, "Benedict XVI does not wear Prada - he wears Christ!" Who knows, Giovanni Maria Vian may have suggested the line to the Pope. Or Cardinal Bergoglio may have read it himself.

I also like the way the Pope turns around the 'peace' that St. Francis meant - from being merely the absence of conflict but rather the peace of soul that only Christ can bring. But once again, his emphasis is on man's passive role as the recipient of Jesus's loving gaze from the Cross, by which he can be re-created, not that man inevitably has to go through life sharing the Cross of Christ in actual trial and suffering. Indeed, he proceeds to speak not of taking upo the Cross but the 'yoke' of Christ - the commandment of love. 'Christianity lite' in the Year of Faith.

But enough carping. Here's Benedict XVI's homily in Assisi on that June day six years ago. Not surprisingly, because the occasion for the visit was the eighth centenary of Francis's conversion, the Holy Father spoke of conversion, the all-important element through which man, even from his basest depths, can earn God's mercy... Indeed, I had forgotten, until I lifted this item for the re-post, that Benedict also spoke explicitly here of conversion in fact and deed as the prerequisite to mercy:
I must apologize I have not had the time to convert the photos which I have lifted as a I posted them back in 2007 on the PRF, at a time when I was a rank amateur at posting and had not figured out the tools I could use to resize and enhance photos...


PILGRIMAGE AND PASTORAL VISIT TO ASSISI



At 10 a.m., the Holy Father presided at the Eucharistic Celebration in the Lower Piazza of the Basilica of St. Francis. Concelebrating with the Pope were Cardinal Attilio Nicora, Pontifical Legate for the Basilicas of St. Francis and Santa Maria degli Angeli, the Bishops of Umbria, and the Ministers-General of the Franciscan orders.

After a greeting by the Archbishop of Assisi/Nocera Umbra/Gualdo Tadino, Mons. Domenico Sorrentino, the Holy Father delivered this homily, translated here:

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HOMILY BY POPE BENEDICT XVI
Assisi, June 17, 2007

Dear brothers and sisters,

What would the Lord tell us today, as we celebrate the Eucharist in the evocative setting of this piazza, in which are concentrated eight centuries of holiness and devotion, of art and culture, n the name of Francis of Assisi?

Today, everything here speaks to us of conversion, as Mons. Sorrentino has reminded us, whom I thank from the heart for the kind words he addressed to me. With him I greet all the Church of Assisi-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino and the pastors of all the churches of Umbria.

I am grateful to Cardinal Attilio Nicora, my legate for the two Papal Basilicas of this city. And I send an affectionate greeting to all the sons of Francis, present here today with the ministers-general of their various orders.

I express my cordial respects to the President of the Council of Ministers [Prime Minister Romano Prodi] and all the civilian authorities who honor us with their presence.

To speak of conversion means going to the heart of the Christian message and to the roots of human existence. The Word of God that was just proclaimed enlightens us, placing before our eyes three model converts.

The first is David. The passage about him, taken from the second Book of Samuel, is one of the most dramatic conversations in the Old Testament. In the center of this dialog is a searing verse, with which the Word of God, offered by the prophet Nathan, lays bare a king who has reached the peak of his political fortune but has fallen to the lowest level in his moral life.

To grasp the dramatic tension of this dialog, we should bear in mind the historical and theological context in which it took place. It is a horizon bound by the story of love whereby God chose Israel as his people, establishing with it an alliance, and being concerned with assuring Israel both land and liberty.

David is a link in this story of God's continuing concern for his people. He is chosen at a difficult moment to be placed alongside King Saul and thereafter to be his successor. God's plan included his descendants, in the messianic design which would find in Christ, 'son of David', its full realization.

The figure of David is thus an image of both historic and religious grandeur - all the more contrast with the abjection to which he had fallen, when, blinded by passion for Bathsheba, he took her away from her husband, one of his most faithful warriors, and later coldly ordered his murder.

It is a shivering thought. How could one elected by God fall so low? Man is truly grandeur and misery. He is great because he carries the image of God and is the object of God's love. He is miserable because he can make terrible use of the freedom which is his great privilege and end up being against his creator.

The verdict of God, as pronounced by Nathan to David, illuminates the most intimate fissures of conscience, where armies, power, public opinion, do not count, where one is alone with God only. "You are that man" are words which nail David to his responsibilities.

Profoundly affected by these words, the king develops sincere repentance and opens himself up to the offer of mercy. And that is the way to conversion.

Inviting us to this way, alongside David, is Francis. From what his biographies say of his youthful years, nothing makes us think of any sin as great as those imputed to the ancient king of Israel. But Francis himself, in the Testament that he prepared during the last months of his existence, looked at his first 25 years as a time "when I as in sin" (cfr 2 Test 1:FF 110).

Beyond specific manifestations, 'sin' was his having thought and organized a life that was centered on himself, with vain dreams of earthly glory. When he was the 'king of feasting' among the youths of Assisi (cfr Cel I, 3,7:FF 588), he did not lack a natural generosity of spirit. But it was still very far from Christian love which gives itself without reservation.

As he himself recalls, he found it bitter to look at lepers. Sin kept him from dominating physical repugnance so that he could recognize in them brothers to love. Conversion brought him to show mercy and in turn this obtained mercy for him.

To serve lepers, up to even kissing them, was not simply a philanthropic gesture, a 'social' conversion, so to speak, but a true religious experience, dictated by the initiative of God's grace and love."

"The Lord," he said, "led me to them"(2 Test 2:FF 110). It was then that bitterness turned to "a sweetness of the soul and body" (2 Test 3: FF 110).

Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, to convert to love is to go from bitterness to 'sweetness', from sorrow to true joy. Man is really himself, and realizes himself fully, to the degree that he lives with God and of God, recognizing and loving him in his brothers.

Another aspect of the way to conversion emerges in the passage from the Letter to the Galatians. And explaining it is another great convert, the Apostle Paul. The context of his words was the debate within the early Christian community, in which many Christians who came from Judaism tended to link salvation to the fulfillment of works according to the ancient Laws, thus negating the newness of Christ and the universality of his message.

Paul presents himself as witness and town crier of grace. On the road to Damascus, the radiant face and powerful voice of Christ rid him of his violent zeal as a persecutor of Christians and lit in place a new zeal for the Crucified One who reconciles people both near and far on the Cross (cfr Eph 2,11-22).

Paul had understood that in Christ all the Laws had been fulfilled and that whoever adheres to Christ unites with him and fulfills the law. To bring Christ - and in Christ, the only God - to all peoples became his mission. Christ in fact "is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh.".
(cfr Eph 2,14).

His very personal confession of love expresses at the same time the common essence of Christian life: "Insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me" (Gal 2,20b).

And how can one respond to this love, if not by embracing the crucified Christ up to living that same life? "I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2,20a).

Speaking about being crucified with Christ, St. Paul not only points to his new birth in Baptism, but to all his life in service to Christ. This link to his apostolic life appears clearly in the concluding words of his defense of Christian freedom at the end of the Letter to the Galatians: "From now on, let no one make troubles for me; for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body" (6,17).

It is the first time, in the history of Christianity, that the words "marks of Jesus' [stigmata] appear. The dispute over the right way to see and live the Gospel is, in the end, not decided by the arguments of our own thought - it is decided by the reality of life, by the communion lived and suffered with Jesus, not only in ideas and words, but to the depth of existence, involving the body itself, one's flesh.

The bruises and scars received in a long history of passion were the testimony of the presence of the Cross of Jesus in the body of St. Paul - they were his stigmata. It wasn't circumcision that saved him. The stigmata were a consequence of his baptism, the expression of his dying with Jesus day by day, the sure sign of his being a new creature (cfr Gal,6,15).

Moreover, in using the word 'stigmate', Paul also refers to the ancient practice of branding on the skin of the slave the seal of his owner. The slave was thus 'stigmatized' as the property of his master and was under his protection. The sign of the Cross, written through long suffering on the skin of Paul, was his pride - it legitimized him as a true servant of Jesus, protected by the love of the Lord.

Dear friends, Francis of Assisi brings us back today all these words of Paul, with the power of his own testimony. From the time that the face of lepers, loved because of love for God, gave him some intuition of the mystery of 'kenosis' (cfr Phil 2,7) - God's coming down in the flesh of the Son of Man, from the time that the voice from the Crucifix of San Damiano planted the program for his life in his heart, "Go, Francis, repair my house" (2 Cel I,6,10:FF 593), his path was nothing else but the daily effort to imitate Christ. He fell in love with Christ.

The wounds of the Crucified One cut into his heart before they were imprinted on his body at La Verna. He could truly say with Paul: "It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me."

Now we come to the evangelical heart of today's Word of God. Jesus himself, in the passage just read from the Gospel of Luke, explains to us the dynamics of true conversion, indicating as a model the woman sinner who was redeemed by love.

One must acknowledge that this woman dared greatly. Her manner of placing herself before Jesus, washing his feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair, kissing them and anointing them with perfumed oil, was scandalous to whoever looked with pitiless eyes of judgment on persons in her condition.

On the contrary, we are struck by the tenderness with which Jesus treats the woman who had been exploited and adjudged by everyone else. Finally she found in Jesus a pure eye, a heart capable of loving without exploiting. In the look and in the heart of Jesus she received the revelation of God-Love.

Lest it be misunderstood, let us note that the mercy of Jesus is not expressed by setting aside moral law. For Jesus, good is good and bad is bad. Mercy does not change the meaning of sin but burns it up in the fire of love. This purifying and healing effect is realized if there is in man a corresponding love, which implies recognizing the law of God, sincere repentance, the intention to start a new life.

Much is forgiven to this sinner in the Gospel because she has loved much. In Jesus, God comes to give us love and ask for love. And what else, my dear brothers and sisters, was the life of Francis as a convert if not a great act of love?

This is revealed by his intense prayers, rich with meditation and praise, his tender embrace of the Holy Child in Greccio, his meditation on the Passion in La Verna, his 'living according to the Holy Gospel (2 Test 14: FF116), his choice of poverty, and his searching for Christ in the faces of the poor.

It was this conversion to Christ, to the point of desiring to 'transform himself' to him, to become a complete image of him - which explains the way he lived, by virtue of which he seems to us so relevant to the great issues of our time, such as the search for peace, the conservation of nature, the promotion of dialog among all men. Francis is a true teacher in these things. But he is, because he starts with Christ.

Christ is 'our peace' (cfr Eph 2,140. Christ is the very principle of the cosmos, because in him, everything has been done (cfr Jn 1,3). Christ is the divine truth, the eternal Logos, in which every 'dia-logos' finds its ultimate basis. Francis profoundly incarnates this Christological truth which is at the root of human existence, of the cosmos, and of history.

I cannot forget in today's context the initiative of my Predecessor of holy memory, John Paul II, who assembled here, in 1986, the representatives of the Christian confessions and of the world's religions for an encounter to pray for peace. It was a prophetic intuition and a moment of grace, as I said a few months ago when I wrote the Bishop of Assisi on the 20th anniversary of that event.

The choice to celebrate the encounter in Assisi was prompted precisely by the testimony of Francis as a man of peace, whom so many view with sympathy even if they are from other cultures and religions.

At the same time, the light of the Poverello on that initiative was a guarantee of Christian authenticity, since his life and his message rested so visibly on his choice of Christ - a guarantee then that would neutralize beforehand any suggestion of religious indifferentism, and which has nothing to do with authentic inter-religious dialog.

The 'spirit of Assisi' which continues to spread itself from that event is opposed to the spirit of violence, of the abuse of religion as a pretext for violence. Assisi tells us that loyalty to one's own religious conviction, loyalty above all to Christ crucified and resurrected, is not expressed in violence and intolerance, but in a sincere respect for others, in dialog, in a proclamation that appeals to freedom and reason, in the commitment for peace and reconciliation.

It cannot be an evangelical attitude, nor a Franciscan one, to fail to unite welcome, dialog and respect for everyone with the certainty of faith that every Christian, like the Saint of Assisi, must cultivate, proclaiming Christ as the way, the truth and the life for mankind (cfr Jn 14.6), the only Savior of the world.

May Francis of Assisi obtain for this particular Church, for the churches of Umbria, and all the Church in Italy - of which, together with Saint Catherine of Siena, he is the patron - and to all in the world who call on him, the grace of a true and full conversion to the love of Christ.

---

At the end of the Mass, the Pope introduced the Angelus with these words:

---

Dear brothers and sisters,

Eight centuries ago, the city of Assisi could hardly have imagined the role that Providence had assigned it, a role which has today made it well-known throughout the world as a true 'place of the spirit."

What gave it this character was the event which took place here and imprinted it indelibly. I refer to the conversion of the young Francis, who after 25 years of a mediocre daydreaming life, that was dedicated to the quest for worldly pleasures and successes, opened himself to grace, rediscovered himself and gradually recognized in Christ the ideal of his life. My pilgrimage today to Assisi is to recall that event in order to relive its meaning and its consequences.

I lingered with particular emotion at the little church of San Damiano where Francis heard from the Crucifix the programmatic words, "Go, Francis, repair my house" (2 Cel I,6,10: FF 593). It was a mission that began with the full conversion of his heart, to become thereafter an evangelical yeast that he cast with full hands on the Church and on society.

At Rivotorto I saw the place where, according to tradition, the lepers lived whom the saint served with mercy, beginning in this way his life as a penitent, and also the Sanctuary which evokes the poor dwelling used by Francis and his first brothers.

I went to the Basilica of St. Clare, Francis's 'little plant'. And this afternoon, after a visit to the Cathedral of Assisi, I will visit the Porziuncola, from where Francis, in the shadow of Mary, guided his expanding fraternity, and where he drew his last breath. There, I will meet with the youth, in the hope that the young Francis, convert to Christ, may speak to their hearts.

At this time, from the Basilica where his mortal remains rest, I wish to share his words of praise: "Highest, Almighty, good Lord, all praises be to you, all honor, glory and every blessing" (Canticle of Brother Sun 1:FF 263). Falling in love with Christ, he encountered the face of God-Love, of whom he became a passionate singer, a 'jester of God.'

In the light of the evangelical Beatitudes, we understand the gentleness with which he knew how to live with others, presenting himself humbly to all, a witness for peace and a peacemaker.

From this city of peace, I wish to send a greeting to the representatives of other Christian confessions and other religions who in 1986 accepted the invitation of my venerated Predecessor to experience here, in the hometown of St Francis, a World Day of Prayer for Peace.

I consider it my duty to issue from here an urgent and heartfelt appeal that all the armed conflicts which are bloodying the earth may cease, that the weapons be silenced, and that everywhere, hate may give way to love, offense to forgiveness, discord to unity.

We feel the spiritual presence here of all those who weep, suffer and die because of wars and their tragic consequences in any part of the world. Our thoughts go particularly to the Holy Land, so loved by St. Francis, to Iraq, to Lebanon, to the entire Middle East.

The populations of these countries have known, for too long, the horrors of combat, of terrorism, of blind violence, the illusion that force can resolve conflicts, the refusal to listen to the other side and give it justice.

Only responsible and sincere dialog, supported by the generosity of the international community, will put an end to so much pain and give back life and dignity to persons, institutions and societies.

May St. Francis, man of peace, obtain for us from the Lord that those who accept to be 'instruments of his peace' may multiply, through thousands of small acts in our daily life; that those who have roles of responsibility may be inspired by a passionate love for peace and for the indomitable will to achieve it, choosing the right means to obtain it.

May the Holy Virgin, whom the Poverello loved with tender heart and sang with inspired words, help us to discover the secret of peace in the miracle of love that was fulfilled in her womb with the incarnation of the Son of God.

---

At the end of the Mass, the Pope greeted a delegation of civil authorities in the Sacred Convent. Then, accompanied by Fr. Vincenzo Coli, custodian of the Sacred Convent, he paid a visit to the Tomb of St. Francis in the Lower Basilica, where he lit a Lamp of Peace.



After the visit, the Holy Father returned to the Sacred Convent for lunch.

Meeting with young people
ends the Pope's visit to Assisi
by Giacomo Galeazzi


ASSISI, Oct. 4, 2013 - Pope Francis urged the young people of Umbria gathered in Assisi on Friday afternoon for the concluding event of his pastoral visit to Assisi not to be afraid of making definitive decisions.

At the piazza of the asilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, the Pope answered a few questions from youth representatives instead of giving an address.

“It takes courage to start a family,” Francis said in reply to a question put to him by a young married couple. “What is marriage? It is a vocation, like priesthood and religious life.” “When two Christian marry, they feel God’s calling in their love for one another. The vocation to come together as man and woman and form one single flesh, uniting their lives.”

“The society in which you live puts the rights of the individual above those of the family. Relations only last until problems rear their head and this is why sometimes people talk about relationships, in a couple, a family or in marriage, in a superficial and erroneous way. Just look at some of the programs you see on television,” Francis stressed.

“I would like to urge you not to be afraid to make definitive decisions in your lives, deciding to marry for example. Let your love grow deeper, respect each other’s timings and ways of expressing yourselves, pray, be well prepared, but have faith in the Lord. He will not abandon you! Let him into your home, as if he were a family member. He will always support you,” Francis emphasised, warning against a “culture of the provisional”.

Priestly celibacy, “remaining virgin for the Kingdom of God” is “not a “no”, it is a “yes”.” Naturally “it involves renouncing a conjugal bond and the prospect of a family, but it means responding “yes” to Christ’s unconditional “yes” to us. This “yes” makes us fertile.” The Pope described “the call to celibacy” as “Christ’s vocation”.

The Pope repeated a statement which he used in front of Brazil’s President Dilma Roussef on his visit to Rio de Janeiro last July: “I have no gold or silver to give you. But I do have something far more precious: Jesus’s Gospel.”

Then Francis cracked a joke sending waves of laughter through the square: “When a mother comes to me and says: “I have a thirty-year old son who doesn’t want to get married and won’t make any decisions. He has a beautiful girlfriend but they aren’t marrying,” I say to her: 'Well madam, stop ironing his shirts!'"


Here's ethe analogous event at Benedict XVI's pastoral visit in 2007, when he chose to speak to the youth of Umbria about St. Francis, in a beautiful catechesis that could be called "A primer on St. Francis for the young":




The Pope bids goodbye to Assisi
with an appeal to the youth:
'Open up to Christ as Francis did!'
By Angela Ambrogetti





ASSISI - It was the youth of Assisi and Umbria who received Pope's Benedict final message in Assisi today, telling them also of his emotions on a day that has been dedicated to the theme of conversion as the central message of St. Francis.

From the Cathedral of San Ruffino where he addressed the local clergy, the Pope proceeded to his last stop of the day, the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli.

First, a private visit to the Porziuncola and to the Chapel dedicated to the Passage of St. Francis, and then his encounter with the youth in the Piazza of the church.

Welcoming him to the Basilica were Father Alfred Bucaioni, custodian of the basilica; its Rector Fr. Rosario Gugliotta; and the parish priest Fr. Francesco de Lazzari.





Speaking to more than 20,000 youth gathered outside the Church later, he said, "St. Francis speaks to everyone, but I know that he has a special attraction to you, the young ones."

Nevertheless, he added, "Unfortunately, we do not lack - rather, there are many, or too many - young people who seek mental landscapes that are as fatuous as they are destructive in the artificial paradise of drugs. How can we deny that there are many young people - as well as older ones - who seek the life that Francis had before his conversion? Beneath that lifestyle was a desire for happiness that lives in every human heart. But can that life give true joy? Francis certainly did not find it there."

The Pope said even Francis's juvenile wandering about is typical today of many teenagers who move around "trying to amuse themselves far beyond the confines of their own hometown" or navigate the Internet "searching for information and contacts of every kind."

"But you yourselves, he told them, "can verify on your own, through your own experiences, that a dissolute life does not give true happiness. The truth is that finite things can give us flashes of joy, but only the Infinite can fill our heart."




Then there is the question of vanity, he said. "Today, it is common to talk about 'image building' or publicity-seeking. In order to have a minimum of success, we are supposed to credit ourselves before the eyes of others with something unprecedented, something original. In a way, this could simply be an innocent desire to be well received. But often, it involves pride, an excessive promotion of oneself, selfishness and a will to dominate. In fact, to center life on oneself is a mortal trap. We can be ourselves only if we open up to love, loving God and our brothers.

Then there was Francis's early dreams of seeking glory in battle. "Even today," the Pope said, "the struggle for life can hurt and it can be very noisy. We need an interior silence so that we do not pass our whole life deafened by clamorous but empty voices, and thereby failing to hear God's voice - the only one that counts because it is the only one that saves."

Do not be content with crumbs, he told them. "Do not be afraid, my dearest ones, to imitate Francis, above all in the capacity to return to yourselves. He learned how to keep a silence within himself to keep an ear out always for the word of God. Step by step, he allowed himself to be led by the hand towards a full encounter with Jesus, until he made Jesus the treasure and the light of his life."

Trust in the God who became man, as Francis did, the Pope told the youth. "When he stripped himself of everything and chose poverty, the reason was Christ, and Christ only. Jesus was his all, and he did not need anything else."

The Pope then spoke about vocations, in the priesthood or the consecrated life. "Francis, who was a deacon, not a priest, had a great veneration for priests. Although he knew that there was misery and fragility even among the ministers of God, he saw them as ministers of the Body of Christ, and this was enough to draw from him a sense of love, reverence and obedience. That is why I invite those among you who hear the call of the priesthood or the consecrated life, to say Yes to God. As John Paul II often loved to say, I too would like to tell you, 'Open your doors to Christ! It is beautiful to be Christian.'"

He spoke to them about the Second Vatican Council and its teachings, especially on inter-religious dialog, which have become the 'common and indispensable patrimony of the Christian sensibility'.

"It is time for young people to seriously enter, like Francis, into a personal relationship with Jesus. It is time to look at the history of this third millennium which has just started as something that more than ever needs to be leavened by the Gospel."

Benedict's address to the youth ended with an appeal and a promise for their next appointment together: "Be with me, dear young people, as you were with John Paul II. We shall see each other again in Loreto at the beginning of September, when I expect to see you all at the Agora of the youth."

Night had fallen. Benedict XVI left Assisi by helicopter. From the air, one could look down on the hills and fields of Assisi, on the Sacred Convent and the Basilica, where in the heart of the city, rest the mortal relics of a saint who speaks loudly to us today, above all to youth in search of true spirituality.


The lowland region of Santa Maria degli Angeli

Saint Francis had a special affection for the Blessed Virgin Mary (2 Cel 198). He was especially fond of a small chapel in the Umbrian plain
below Assisi, dedicated to St. Mary of the Angels, and popularly known as the "Porziuncola", or small portion.

The Porziuncola, over which the Basilica, was built to shelter it.

It was the property of the Benedictine monastery of Monte Subasio. This chapel was the place where Francis received his evangelical calling
on 24 February 1208, when he heard the Gospel of the mission of the apostles.

In this chapel the Order of Friars Minor was born. It was also in the Porziuncola that the Second Order of Poor Ladies of San Damiano was born
on Palm Sunday 1211, when Clare embraced the evangelical form of life of Francis and the brothers.

The Porziuncola was the venue for the chapters of the Order, and for the sending of the missionaries to various provinces in Italy, Europe and
the Holy Land. It was also at the Porziuncola that Francis desired to end his days, and where he died in the evening of 3 October 1226.

Here is a translation of the Holy Father's address to the youth, after greetings from two youth representatives:

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ADDRESS TO THE YOUTH OF UMBRIA
AT SANTA MARIA DEGLI ANGELI

Dearest young people,

Thank you for your warm welcome. I sense the faith that you have, your joy in being Christian Catholics. Thank you for the affectionate words and for the important questions that your two representatives have addressed to me. I hope to say something during this encounter in reply to these questions, which are questions about life. I will not be able to give you exhaustive answers, but I will try to say what I can.

But first, I want to greet all of you, the young people of the Diocese of Assisi, Nocera Umbra and Gualdo Tadino, with your bishop, Mons. Domenico Sorrentino. And I greet the young people from all the other dioceses of Umbria who have come here with your pastors. And of course, all the young people from other regions of Italy who are accompanied by your Franciscan advisers.

And finally, a cordial greeting to Cardinal Attilio Nicora, my legate for the Papal Basilicas in Assisi, and to the Ministers-General of the various Franciscan orders.

We are welcomed here, along with Francis, by the heart of the Mother, "the Virgin made Church", as he loved to call her (cfr Saluto alla Beata Vergine Maria, 1: FF 259). Francis had a special affection for the Porziuncola chapel, which is kept in this Basilica.
It had been one of the churches that he himself repaired in the first years of his conversion, and where he listened to and meditated on the Gospel of mission (cfr 1 Cel I,9,22: FF 356).

After the first steps at Rivotorto, it was here that he set up the 'headquarters' of the Order, where the friars could assemble as in a maternal womb, to regenerate themselves and go out again filled with missionary drive.

Here, he also obtained for all a spring of mercy in the experience of the 'great forgiveness', which all of us always need. And finally, it was also here that he underwent his encounter with 'sister death."

Dear young people, you know that the reason that has brought me here to Assisi is the desire to relive the interior journey of Francis, on the occasion of the eighth centenary of his conversion.

This moment of my pilgrimage has a special significance. I have thought of this as the climax of my day. St. Francis speaks to everyone, but I know that he has a special attraction for you, the young ones. This is confirmed by your presence here in such number, as well as by the questions you have posed.

His conversion came when he was in the fullness of his life, of his experiences, of his dreams. But he had lived 25 years without finding sense in life. A few months before he died, he would remember it as that time "when I was in sin" (cfr. 2 Test 1: FF 110).

What did Francis mean by sin? It is not easy to say, if we go by his biographies, each of them with a different design. An effective portrait of his lifestyle can be found in the Legend of three companions, which says, "Francis was so happy and generous, dedicated to games and songs. He would wander around Assisi night and day with friends like him, so generous in spending that they dissipated what they had or could earn in dining and other pleasures"
(3 Comp 1,2: FF 1396).

We can say the same thing of so many young people in our day. Today they can even amuse themselves far beyond their own city limits. So many young people gather together for all kinds of pastime during weekends. They can even wander about virtually by navigating through the Internet, looking for information and contacts of every kind. And unfortunately, there are also many young people - too many! - who look for mental landscapes as fatuous as they are destructive in the artificial paradise of drugs.

How can we deny that there are many young people - and not so young ones - who are tempted to imitate the life of the young Francis before his conversion? Beneath that lifestyle was the desire for happiness which dwells in every human heart. But could that life bring true joy? Francis certainly did not find it that way.

You can verify it for yourselves, dear young people, on the basis of your own experiences. The truth is that finite things cam give flashes of joy, but only the Infinite can fill the heart. As another great convert, St. Augustine, said: "You created us for you, O Lord, and our heart will be uneasy until it rests in you" (Confess. 1,1).

The same biographical text tells us that Francis was rather vain. He liked to have sumptuous clothes made for him and he was always in search of originality (cfr 3 Comp 1, 2: FF 1396). Whether it is vanity or the search of something original, that is something that has affected us in some way.

Today, it is common to speak about 'image building' or publicity-seeking. In order to have the minimum of success, we need to distinguish ourselves in the eyes of others with something unprecedented, something original. In a way, this could simply be an innocent desire to be well received. But often, it involves pride, an excessive promotion of oneself, selfishness, a desire to dominate. In fact, to center life on oneself is a mortal trap. We can be ourselves only if we open up to love, loving God and our brothers.

An aspect that also impressed his contemporaries about Francis was his ambition, his thirst for glory and adventure. This led him to the field of battle, and he ended up being imprisoned for a year in Perugia. The same thirst for glory, once he was set free, would have taken him to Puglia, with a new military expedition, but it was on this occasion, at Spoleto, that the Lord made himself felt in his heart, causing him to turn back and to start paying attention to his Word.

It is interesting to note how the Lord took Francis at his word - his desire for self-affirmation - in order to show him the way to a holy ambition projected towards the infinite: "Who can be more useful to you: the master or the servant?"(3 Comp 2,6: FF 1401), that was the question he heard in his heart. As if to say: Why be content with being dependent on men, when there is God who is ready to welcome you to his house, into his royal service?

Dear young people, you have reminded me of some problems of youth, of your difficulty in constructing a future, but above all, of the effort to discern the truth. In the story of the passion of Christ, we find Pilate asking, "What is truth?" (Jn 18,28).

It is the question of a skeptic who says, "You say you are the truth, but what is truth"? And therefore, since truth is unrecognizable, Pilate means to say: Let us do what is most practical, what will succeed best, not look for the truth. So he condemns Jesus to death, because he is after pragmatism, success, his own fortune.

Even today, many say: But what is truth? We can find fragments, perhaps, but how can we find the truth? It is really difficult to believe that the truth could be Jesus Christ, the true life, the compass of our life.

But if we begin, as we are greatly tempted, to live only according to the possibility of the moment, without truth, then we truly lose criterion and we also lose that foundation for common peace that can only be the truth. And the truth is Christ.

The truth of Christ has been verified in the lives of saints throughout the centuries. Saints are the great track of light in history which shows us: this is life, this is the way, this is the truth. And so, we have the courage to say Yes to Jesus Christ: "Your truth is verified in the lives of the saints. We will follow you."

Dear young people, coming here from the Basilica of the Sacred Convent, I thought that to talk for about an hour by myself may not be a good thing. So, I think, now might be the moment for a pause, for a song. I know you have many songs, maybe I can listen to one now.....

We heard the song say that St. Francis heard the voice. He heard in his heart the voice of Christ, and what happened? He understood that he should place himself at the service of his brothers, especially those who suffered the most. That was the consequence of his first encounter with Christ.

This morning, going to Rivotorto, I took a look at the place where, according to tradition, lepers were confined - the least of men, the most marginal - about whom Francis had felt an irresistible sense of repugnance. Then, touched by grace, he opened his heart to them. And he did this not just by pious almsgiving - it would have been little - but kissing them and serving them. He himself confessed that what had once been bitter to him now became "sweetness of soul and body" (2 Test 3: FF 110).

And so, grace began to shape Francis. He became increasingly able to keep his eyes fixed on the face of Christ and to listen to his voice. It was then that the Crucifix of San Damiano addressed him and called him to a bold mission: "Go, Francis, repair my house which, as you see, is all in ruins." (2 Cel I, 6, 10: FF 593).

Stopping this morning at San Damiano, and later at the Basilica of St. Clare, where the Crucifix that spoke to Francis is now kept, I too looked at the eyes of Christ. It is the image of the Crucified and Risen Christ, the life of the Church, which speaks even to us if we pay attention, as 2000 years ago, he spoke to his apostles and 800 years ago, spoke to Francis. The Church lives continuously from such encounters.

Yes, dear young people, let us allow ourselves to encounter Christ. Let us trust in him and listen to his word. He was not only a fascinating human being. Of course, he was fully man, similar in every way to us, except in sin (cfr Heb 4,15). But he is more than that: God became man in him, and therefore, he is the only Savior, as his very name says. Jesus means 'God saves'.

One comes to Assisi to learn from St. Francis the secret for recognizing Jesus and experiencing him. Here is what Francis felt for Jesus, according to his first biographer: "He always carried Jesus in his heart. Jesus on his lips, Jesus in his ears, Jesus in his eyes, Jesus in his hands, Jesus in all his body...Indeed, travelling so much, meditating and singing Jesus, he would forget he was travelling. He would stop to invite all creatures to praise Jesus" (1 Cel II, 9, 115: FF 115). And so we see, that communion with Christ also opens our heart and our eyes to Creation.

In short, Francis was truly enamoured of Jesus. He found him in the word of God, in his brothers, in nature, but above all, in his eucharistic presence. In this respect, he wrote in his Testament: "Of the Son of God in the most high, I see nothing else corporally in this world but his most Sacred Body and Blood" (2 Test 10: FF 113).

That Christmas in Greccio expresses his need to see Jesus in his most tender humanity as a baby (cfr 1 Cel I, 30, 85-86: FF 469-470). The experience of La Verna, where he received the stigmata, shows the degree of intimacy he had reached in his relationship with the crucified Christ.

He could truly say with Paul: "To me, life is Christ" (Phil 1,21). When he stripped himself of everything and chose poverty, the reason for it all was Christ, only Christ. Jesus was his all - he needed nothing else.

But precisely because he was a man of Christ, Francis was also a man of the Church. The Crucifix of San Damiano had instructed him to repair the house of Christ, which is in fact the Church. Between Christ and the Church is an intimate and indissoluble relationship. To be called on to repair it implied, certainly, something specific and original in Francis's mission.

At the same time, that task was nothing else basically but the responsibility given by Christ to every one who is baptized. To each of us he says: "Go and repair my house." We are all called on, in every generation, to repair anew the house of Christ, the Church. Only in that way, the Church lives and becomes beautiful.

As we know, there are so many ways of repairing, edifying, constructing the house of God, the Church. It is built through several different vocations, from the layman to the family to the consecrated life and to priesthood.

I would like to say a few words about this last vocation. Francis, who was a deacon, not a priest (cfr 1 Cel I,30,86: FF 470), had a great veneration for priests. Although he knew that even among the ministers of God, there is such misery and weakness, he saw them as ministers of the Body of Christ, and that was enough to draw from him a sense of love, reverence and obedience (cfr 2 Test 6-10: FF 112-113).

His love for priests is an invitation to rediscover the beauty of this vocation, which is vital for the people of God. Dear young people, surround your priests wih love and thanks. If the Lord should call any of you to this great ministry or to any form of consecrated life, do not hesitate to say Yes. It is not easy, but it is beautiful to be a minister of the Lord. It is beautiful to spend one's life for him.

The young Francis also felt a truly filial affection for his bishop, and it was in his hands that, stripping himself of everything, he professed a life that would thenceforth be totally consecrated to the Lord (cfr 1 Cel I, 6, 15: FF 344).

He felt in a special way the mission of the Vicar of Christ, to whom he submitted his Rule and entrusted his Order. If the Popes have shown such affection for Assisi throughout history, it is in a sense a reciprocation of the affection that Francis had for the Pope. I am happy, dear young ones, to be here, in the footsteps of my predecessors, particularly of the friend, the beloved John Paul II.

As in concentric cicles, the love of Francis for Christ spreads not only throughout the church but to all things, seen in Christ and through Christ. Thus was born the Canticle of Creation, in which the eye rests on the spledor of Creation: from brother sun to sister moon, from sister water to brother fire. His interior vision had become so pure and penetrating that he could see the beauty of the Creator in the beauty of his creatures. The Canticle of brother sun, before being a most elevated page of poetry, is an implicit invitation to respect creation. It is a prayer of praise raised to the Lord, the Creator of everything.

Likewise, Francis's commitment to peace must be seen as an emblem of prayer. This aspect of his life is of great relevance in a world which needs peace so much but has not succeeded in finding the way to achieve it. Francis was a man of peace and a peacemaker. He showed it in the gentle way that he faced men of other faith, without keeping silent about his own faith, as he did in his encounter with the Sultan (cfr 1 Cel I, 20, 57: FF 422).

If today, inter-religious dialog, especially after the Second Vatican Council, has become a common indispensable patrimony of the Christian sensibility, Fanacis can help us dialog authentically, without falling into an attitude of indifference in confronting the truth or into attenuating our Christian message.

His being a man of peace, of tolerance, of dialog, was born of his experience of God-Love. His greeting of peace was, not in`identally, a prayer: "God give you peace" (2 Test 23: FF 121).

Dear young people, your presence here in great numbers says how much the figure of Francis speaks to your heart. I gladly re-convey his message to you, but above all, his life and his testimony. It is time for young people who, like Francis, will seriously undertake and know how to enter into a personal relationship with Jesus. It is time to look at the history of this third millennium which has just started as one that more then ever needs to be leavened by the Gospel.

Once again, I will make mine the invitation that my beloved predecessor, John Paul II, always loved to address especially to the youth: "Open your doors to Christ." Open them as Francis did, wthout fear, without calculation, without measure.

Dear young people, be my joy as you were the joy of John Paul II. From this Basilica dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels, I invite you to our next appointment at the Holy House of Loreto, at the start of September, for the Agora of Italian youth.

To you all, my blessing. thank you for everything, for your presence, and for your prayers.

---

Afterwards, the Pope greeted several representatives of the youth. He then left the Basilica by car for the sports field Migaghelli where he boarded the helicopter to go back to Rome, where he was expected to arrive at the Vatican heliport around 7:50 in the evening.

Monday, Oct. 7, 2013, 27th Week in Ordinary Time
FEAST OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY

Illustrations, from left: Sculpture of St Dominic and the Virgin of the Rosary; Battle of Lepanto, by Veronese, 1572; prayer card to the Virgin of the Rosary;
image of Our Lady of Pompeii with Sts. Dominic and Catherine; Mysteries of the Rosary, Lorenzo Lotto, 1539; stained glass window of St. Dominic and the rosary.
Although the rosary had been prayed in some form as early as the second century, St. Dominic is credited with institutionalizing it as a devotion after a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1208. In 1541, the victory of the Holy Fleet against the Ottoman Turks in the naval battle of Lepanto off western Greece was attributed to Our Lady of the Rosary, and the October feast was instituted 30 years later. The rosary reached its present form in the 16th century — with 15 mysteries (joyful, sorrowful and glorious) for meditation. In 2002, Pope John Paul II added the Mysteries of Light to this devotion.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100713.cfm


AT THE VATICAN TODAY

Pope Francis met with

- Their Majesties Letsie III, King of Lesotho (Africa) and the Queen, with his delegation.

- Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education

- Officials of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB):
Cardinal thy Michael Dolan, Archbishop of New York, president;
Mons. Joseph Edward Kurtz, Archbishop of Louisville, vice-president;
Mons. Ronny E. Jenkins, secretary-general;
Mons, J. Brian Bransfield, adjunct secretary-generak.

Mons. Luigi Bonazzi, Apostolic Nuncio to Uganda.



One year ago...
Benedict XVI proclaimed Saints Juan de Avila and Hildegarde von Bingen as Doctors of the Church in a solemn ritual before the Opening Mass of the XIII General Assembly of the Bishops's Synod called to discuss the New Evangelization. The two are only the 34th and 35th saints who have been proclaimed Doctors of the Church/ In a brief message at the end of the Mass, before the Angelus prayers, the Holy Father called on all the faithful to pray the Rosary in order to ask her guidance in leading us to Jesus.



The following are the biographies of the two new Doctors of the Church in the Vatican libretto for today's Proclamation and Mass.

SAN JUAN DE AVILA (1500-1569)

NB: 'De Avila' is the saint's family name, and does not mean 'of Avila' as it is often mis-translated to English, even the Vatican libretto and other English translations for today's Proclamation. He was not born in Avila but in Almodovar del Campo near Toledo, and never lived in Avila. The San Juan who was born in Avila is better known as San Juan de la Cruz (John of the Cross), also a Doctor of the Church.

JUAN DE AVILA was born on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, at Almodovar del Campo (Ciudad Real, then in the Diocese of Toledo), He was the only child of devout Christian parents who enjoyed good social and financial standing.

When he was 14, his parents brought him to the University of Salamanca to read Law but he renounced his studies in his fourth year on account of a profound conversion experience which compelled him to return to the family home in order to pray and reflect.

Intending to become a priest and to depart for the missions in America, he began studying humanities and theology. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1526, he celebrated his first Mass in his home parish. His parents were no longer alive. On this occasion, he invited 12 needy people to his table, and resolved to give the needy all the fortune derived from the silver mines owned by his family. He then set off for Sevilla to await a ship that would take him to Nueva Espana (Mexico).

Meanwhile, he preached in Sevilla and in the surrounding areas, where he met up again with his friend from his days at Alcala - another priest, Fernando de Contreras, who was by then a renowned catechist. The latter was so impressed by the younger man's preaching that he convinced the Archbishop of Sevilla to dissuade Juan from going to America and remain in Andalucia, where after centuries of Muslim control, the need to strengthen the faith was great.

So Juan remained in Sevilla, where he and Fernando shared a home, their poverty and prayer life. Juan continued his studies in theology at the Colegio de Santo Tomas in Sevilla while preaching and doing parish work.

His successes, however, were soon to be obscured by a denunciation to the Inquisition accusing him of holding some questionable doctrinal positions. During his trial in 1531-1533, he was kept in prison where he dedicated himself to prayer.

During this time, Juan received the grace of penetrating the mysteries of God's love, an insight that would shape his spiritual life and become one of the main themes for his work of evangelization.

From his prison cell, he wrote the first version of what would become his best-known work, Audi, filia, a treatise on the spiritual life, dedicated to Dona Sancha Carillo, a young lady from a distinguished family who received spiritual direction from him after an astonishing conversion.

When the Inquisition absolved him in 1533, Juan continued his preaching with notable success. But he chose to move to Cordoba, where he was incardinated, and where he came to know his disciple, friend and first biographer, the Dominica friar Luis de Granada. In 1536., he chose Granada to be his permanent home, where he continued his studies and came to be known as 'Maestro'.

In Granada, Juan lived an austere life dedicated to prayer and preaching. Gradually, he focused on the formation of men for the priesthood. To this end, he founded minor and major colleges for priest formation, which, after the Council of Trent, would become seminaries as envisioned by the Council.

In the eyes of Maestro de Avila, the reform of the Church, which he came to regard as ever more necessary, would come about through the holiness of clerics, religious and lay faithful.

The life of Juan de Avila is associated with famous converts, such as the Marquis of Llombal who would become St. Francisco Borja, and John Cidad, who would become San Juan de Dios. But he is mostly distinguished by his dedication to the poor and by founding colleges for the education of children and adolescents. He also founded the University of Baeza in Jaen, which, for centuries, was an important center for the formation of priests.

He travelled widely throughout Andalucia and parts of neighboring Extremadura to preach. But poor health forced him to retire for good in 1546 to Montilla near Cordoba where he carried out his apostolate through correspondence.

It was also in Montilla that he gave shape to some of his works. He wrote a catechism on Christian doctrine in verses, which children could sing. Juan de Avila also wrote a Treatise on the Love of God and a Treatise of the Priesthood .

On the morning of May 10, 1569, Juan de Avila - in severe pain and holding a crucifix, surrounded by disciples and friends - entrusted his soul to god in his humble home in Montilla. Hearing about his death, Teresa of Avila said, "I mourn because the Church of God has lost an important pillar".


ST. HILDEGARDE VON BINGEN (1098-1179)


Hildegarde was born in 1098 in Bermesheim (in what is now the German state of Rheinpfalz [Rhineland-Palatinate]). She was educated by Jutta von Spontheim at the Benedictine Abbey of Disibodenberg in Rheinpfalz, where Hildegarde took over the community after Jutta's death. Ten years later, she moved her community to Rupertsberg in Bingen, where she would work for the next 30 years.

Despite health problems, she was an energetic promoter of the Christian faith, traveling to meet with politicians and high-ranking clergy. Abbess Hildegarde became much respected by popes and bishops, kings and princes. But she was just as popular with the faithful who trusted her and relied on her. She became one of the most respected personalities in the Church of the 12th century.

Even as a child, Hildegarde had visions which increased over the years. She wrote down her experiences with the help of a 'secretary' for she did not know Latin very well. Her writings are considered to be the first works of German mysticism. But she also wrote on health, natural science, the cosmos, ethical questions and theology, which came to be an important part of the cultural patrimony of the Middle Ages. In the 1990s, a resurrection of the s[pritual music she composed brought her to the attention of the contemporary world.

She died in Rupertsberg on September 17, 1179, where she was buried. There are relics of her in the convent of Eibingen in Rudesheim, which she had founded in 1148.

On May 10, 2012, Benedict XVI inscribed Hildegarde von Bingen into the General Calendar of the Church and extended her liturgical cult (until then limited to Germany) to the Universal Church, in what is called an equivalent cnaonization. Two weeks later, on May 27, he announced that he would proclaim Hildegarde a Doctor of the Universal Church, along with Spain's San Juan de Avila.

Pope Benedict dedicated two catecheses to St. Hildegarde on Sept. 1 and Sept. 8, 2010:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100901_en.html
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100908...


Also from the libretto:

THE RITE OF PROCLAIMING
A 'DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH'

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Cardinal Angelo Amato, SDB, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood, accompanied by the Postulators, addressed the following words to the Holy Father:

Holy Father,

The Year of Faith is nearly upon us, providentially called by Your Holiness so that all may reflect upon the gift and the fundamental value of the Christian life. This 'favorable time', which officially begins next Thursday, Oct. 11, finds in today's liturgy, as it were, a helpful 'antiphon'.

Most Holy Father, it is no coincidence that the word 'antiphon' is used here. The two saints we are asking you to name Dcotors of the Universal Church are distinguished not only for the consistency between their teachings and their lives, but also for their quest for a harmonious convergence between the culture of their time and the mystery of Christ, Revelation of God and Savior of the world.

Despite their different contexts, in both St Juan de Avila and Saint Hildegarde von Bingen, humanism achieves its highest and noblest meaning as evangelical preparation, a true antiphon to him who is the Harmony of the Father and the New Song of a universe redeemed.

As Your Holiness stated in Paragraph i of your Apostolic Letter motu proprio Porta Fidei, "The people of today can still experience the need to go to the well, like the Samaritan woman, in order to hear Jesus, who invites us to believe in him and to draw upon the source of living water welling up within him "(cf Jn 4,14).

Above all, Juan de Avila and Hildegarde von Bingen wished to 'hear Jesus'. They admired the depth of the Son of God's presence in the history of the world and, with hearts aflame and great insight, they explored new horizons of the eternal beauty he revealed. Thus today they are still able to pour out the water of life, whcih wells up with the witness to the joy of the tireless, rich quest for the truth.

[The biographies of the two saints were read.]

The holiness and the eminent doctrine of these two saints shine even in our day, for which reason the Apostolic See has received many requests to confer upon them the title of Doctor of the Universal Church.

Your Holiness charged the Congregation for the Causes of Saints with the task of studying carefully every aspect of the question. Having gained the consent of the Cardinals and Bishops in two distinct plenary sessions, Your Holiness announced on May 27 this year, that Saint Juan de Avila and St. Hildegarde von Bingen would today be granted the title of Doctor, for the good of the Church and the joy of their devotees.

Everyone rose, and the Holy Father pronounced the following ritual formula:

We, having obtained the opinions of numerous Brothers in the Episcopate and of many of Christ's faithful throughout the world, having consulted the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, after mature deliberation and with certain knowledge, and by the fullness of the aposwtolic power, declare St. Juan de Avila, diocesan priest, and St. Hildegarde von Bingen, professed nun of the Order of St. Benedict, Doctors of the Universal Church.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Choir:

Let the peoples recount the wisdom of the Saints
and let the Church proclaim their praise.

Cardinal Amato:

Most Holy Father,
In the name of Holy Church, I thank Your Holiness for having today proclaimed St. Juan de Avila and St. Hildegarde von Bingen Dcotors of the Universal Church.

The proclamation ritual was followed by the Celebration of the Eucharist.

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October 7, 2012, was certainly an extra-special day for the Church, and for Benedict XVI, who proclaimed two new Doctors of the Church and opened the fifth major Synodal Assembly during the first seven years of his Pontificate (General Assemblies on the Eucharist and the Word of God, special assemblies on Africa and the Middle East, and this General Assembly in 2012 on the New Evangelization, The proclsmstion and Mass deserve a lookback post of their own....





PROCLAMATION OF
2 NEW DOCTORS OF THE CHURCH and
OPENING MASS OF THE XIII GENERAL ASSEMBLY
OF THE BISHOPS' SYNOD


Libretto cover: "The Creator on his Throne among Angels and Cherubim", fresco, by students of Perugino, Raphael Rooms, Vatican Apostolic Palace.





Pope Benedict XVI today proclaimed two new Doctors of the Universal Church in St. Juan de Avila of Spain (1500-1569), and St. Hildegarde von Bingen of Germany (1098-1179), bringing the total number of Doctors to 35. The 33rd Doctor of the Church, St. Therese of Lisieux, was elevated to the honor by Blessed John Paul II in 1997.

St. Hildegarde is the fourth female Doctor of the Church, after Saints Teresa (de Jesus) of Avila and Catherine of Siena, proclaimed Doctors of the Church one week apart by Paul VI in 1970, and St. Therese of Lisieux. She is the second German Doctor of the Church after St. Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great).

St. Juan de Avila is the fourth Spanish Doctor of the Church, after St. Isidore of Seville (560-536), and the third Spanish Doctor from the Counter-Reformation era, after St. Juan de la Cruz (John of the Cross) (1542-1591) and St. Teresa de Jesus (1515-1582), both born in Avila. Juan de Avila, who was born and worked in Andalucia, southern Spain, was a friend of his contemporary Doctors, as well as of other famous Spanish saints of the era - Ignacio de Loyola, Francisco Borja, Tomas de Villanueva, and Juan de Dios.

Doctors of the Church are saints of exceptional holiness and spirituality who also contributed greatly to the teachings of the Church by their writing and the message conveyed by their lives. Only the Pope can proclaim a Doctor, after evidence of universal support for the candidate.

The Spanish bishops started their petition to have Juan de Avila declared a Doctor of the Church since his canonization in 1970. The German bishops have carried out a similar effort for St. Hildegarde, and among the signers of a position in the 1970s was Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger of Munich.

Although beatified, Hildegarde was never formally canonized despite four attempts around the time that the Roman canonization process was first instituted, but her name has been included in Roman Martyrology since the 16th century.


Pope names 2 new Doctors of the Church
and opens two-week Synodal Assembly


VATICAN CITY Oct. 7 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI named two new "doctors" of the church Sunday, conferring one of the Catholic Church's highest honours on a 16th-century Spanish preacher and a 12th-century German mystic who wasn't even officially recognized as a saint until earlier this year.

St. John of Avila [St. John de Avila], Spain, and St. Hildegarde of Bingen, Germany, join the ranks of only 33 other church doctors who have been singled out over the course of Christianity for their contributions to and influence on Catholic doctrine.

Benedict named them doctors at the start of a Mass in St. Peter's Square that kicked off a two-week meeting of the world's bishops to chart the Church's new evangelization mission.

The synod coincides with the 50th anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 church meetings that modernized the Church.

Some 262 cardinals, bishops and priests from around the world are in Rome for the synod, the largest number ever. Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, was named by Benedict to run the meeting. [Cardinal Wuerl is the rapporteur/moderator. Other prelates were named presiding officers of the Synod.]

Addressing a sea of green-robed clerics, Benedict said the aim of the synod was to help reawaken the faith among Catholics who have drifted away from the church.

He said this crisis of the faith was reflected in the "profound crisis" of an increasing number of failed marriages.

"Matrimony," he said, "is a Gospel in itself."

At the start of the Mass, Cardinal Angelo Amato, head of the Vatican's saint-making office, read aloud the reasons why the church was proclaiming St. John and St. Hildegarde doctors, saying their "holiness and eminent doctrine" shine hundreds of years after they lived.

Benedict is particularly fond of Hildegarde, who was considered a saint in his native Germany but was never officially proclaimed one by the Vatican. Benedict, who himself referred to Hildegarde as a saint, earlier this year passed the decree making her one officially, a requirement for her to be named a Church doctor.

The last Church doctor named was St. Therese of Lisieux, France, in 1997.

My addendum:

Saints. Ambrose (340-307), Jerome (345-420), Augustine (354-430), and Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) were the first Doctors of the Western Church, proclaimed in 1298 by Pope Boniface VIII.

After naming St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) a Doctor of the Church in 1567, St. Pope Pius V in 1568 proclaimed four great contemporaries of the Eastern Church as Doctors - St. Athanasius (295-373), St. Basil the Great (3303-79), St. Gregory of Nazianzus (330-390) and St. John Chrysostom (345-407).

In 1588, Sixtus V recognized St. Bonaventure (1217-1274) with the honor. No new Doctor of the Church was proclaimed till 1720, in St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), by Clement XI.

Subsequently honored were:
St. Isidore of Sevilla (560-636), by Innocent XIII in 1722
St. Peter Chrysologus (400-450), by Benedict XIII, in 1729
St. Pope Leo the Great (390-461), by Benedict XIV, in 1754
St. Peter Damiani (1007-1072), by Leo XII, in 1828
St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), by Pius VIII in 1830
St. Hilaire of Poitiers (315-368), by Pius IX in 1851
St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), by Pius IX in 1871
St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), by Pius IX in 1871
St. Cyril of Jerusalem (315-387) and
St. Cyril of Alexandria (376-444), by Leo XIII in 1882
St. John Damascene (679-749), by Leo XIII in 1890
St. Bede the Venerable (673-735), by Leo XIII in 1899
St. Ephrem of Syria (306-373), by Benedict XV in 1920
St. Peter Canisius (1521-1597), by Pius XI in 1925
St. Juan de la Cruz (1542-1591), by Pius XI in 1926
St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), by Pius XI in 1931
St. Albert the Great (1200-1280), by Pius XI in 1931
St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231), by Pius XII in 1946
St. Lawrence of Brindisi (1559-1622), by John XXIII in 1959
St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), by Paul VI in 1970
St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1379), by Paul VI in 1970
St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897), by John Paul II in 1997




The Pope opens Synodal Assembly
for the New Evangelization

Oct. 7, 2012

A host of cardinals, bishops, priests, religious and lay people drawn from throughout the Universal Church gathered around Pope Benedict XVI Sunday morning as he declared the Thirteenth Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelisation, officially open. Emer McCarthy has this report:

Green was the liturgical colour and the concelebrating Synod fathers took their places at the foot of the altar before the façade of St Peter’s Basilica, as Pope Benedict XVI outlined his vision and hopes for the important task ahead of them in the next three weeks: helping people to rediscover faith in Jesus Christ.

In his homily, he said that “in every time and place, evangelization always has as its starting and finishing points Jesus Christ, the Son of God (cf. Mk 1:1); and the Crucifix is the supremely distinctive sign of him who announces the Gospel: a sign of love and peace, a call to conversion and reconciliation”.

This call, he continued, should take into account “those who do not yet know Jesus Christ and his message of salvation, and those who, though baptized, have drifted away from the Church”.

Then – reflecting on the Sunday Gospel, Mark Chapter 10 - Pope Benedict singled out one area for particular attention: marriage.

Looking out at the tens of thousands gathered in St Peter’s Square he said that marriage “is a Gospel in itself” and “Good News” for today’s dechristianized world.

“The union of a man and a woman, their becoming “one flesh” in charity, in fruitful and indissoluble love, is a sign that speaks of God with a force and an eloquence which in our days has become greater because unfortunately, for various reasons, marriage, in precisely the oldest regions evangelized, is going through a profound crisis”.

Benedict XVI pointed to a link between the current crisis of faith and this crisis in marriage, because" marriage is based on the grace of God that man of today no longer recognizes. To overcome this crisis, any crisis, we need to be newly reconciled with God"

Above the altar from the central balcony of St Peter’s basilica hung two giant tapestries depicting St John of Avila and St Hildegarde of Bingen. Reciting the solemn formula in Latin, Pope Benedict XVI declared them both Doctors of the Universal Church.

He then reminded the men and women gathered to the Vatican for the Synod that “the saints are the true actors and pioneers in evangelization” and invoking their intercession, Pope Benedict concluded by entrusting the Synod’s work to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the New Evangelization.

Here is the Vatican translation of the Pope's homily today:

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With this solemn concelebration we open the thirteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the theme The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith.

This theme reflects a programmatic direction for the life of the Church, its members, families, its communities and institutions. And this outline is reinforced by the fact that it coincides with the beginning of the Year of Faith, starting on 11 October, on the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.

I give a cordial and grateful welcome to you who have come to be part of the Synodal Assembly, in particular to the Secretary-General of the Synod of Bishops, and to his colleagues. I greet the fraternal delegates of the other churches and ecclesial communities as well as all present, inviting them to accompany in daily prayer the deliberations which will take place over the next three weeks.

The readings for this Sunday’s Liturgy of the Word propose to us two principal points of reflection: the first on matrimony, which I will touch shortly; and the second on Jesus Christ, which I will discuss now.

We do not have time to comment upon the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews but, at the beginning of this Synodal Assembly, we ought to welcome the invitation to fix our gaze upon the Lord Jesus, “crowned with glory and honour, because of the suffering of death (2:9).

The word of God places us before the glorious One who was crucified, so that our whole lives, and in particular the commitment of this Synodal session, will take place in the sight of him and in the light of his mystery.

In every time and place, evangelization always has as its starting and finishing points Jesus Christ, the Son of God (cf. Mk 1:1); and the Crucifix is the supremely distinctive sign of him who announces the Gospel: a sign of love and peace, a call to conversion and reconciliation.

My dear Brother Bishops, starting with ourselves, let us fix our gaze upon him and let us be purified by his grace.

I would now like briefly to examine the new evangelization, and its relation to ordinary evangelization and the mission ad gentes.

The Church exists to evangelize. Faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ’s command, his disciples went out to the whole world to announce the Good News, spreading Christian communities everywhere. With time, these became well-organized churches with many faithful.

At various times in history, divine providence has given birth to a renewed dynamism in Church’s evangelizing activity. We need only think of the evangelization of the Anglo-Saxon peoples or the Slavs, or the transmission of the faith on the continent of America, or the missionary undertakings among the peoples of Africa, Asia and Oceania.

It is against this dynamic background that I like to look at the two radiant figures that I have just proclaimed Doctors of the Church, Saint Juan de Avila and Saint Hildegarde von Bingen.

Even in our own times, the Holy Spirit has nurtured in the Church a new effort to announce the Good News, a pastoral and spiritual dynamism which found a more universal expression and its most authoritative impulse in the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.

Such renewed evangelical dynamism produces a beneficent influence on the two specific “branches” developed by it, that is, on the one hand the Missio ad Gentes or announcement of the Gospel to those who do not yet know Jesus Christ and his message of salvation, and on the other the New Evangelization, directed principally at those who, though baptized, have drifted away from the Church and live without reference to the Christian life.

The Synodal Assembly which opens today is dedicated to this new evangelization, to help these people encounter the Lord, who alone fills existence with deep meaning and peace; and to favour the rediscovery of the faith, that source of grace which brings joy and hope to personal, family and social life.

Obviously, such a special focus must not diminish either missionary efforts in the strict sense or the ordinary activity of evangelization in our Christian communities, as these are three aspects of the one reality of evangelization which complement and enrich each other.

The theme of marriage, found in the Gospel and the first reading, deserves special attention. The message of the Word of God may be summed up in the expression found in the Book of Genesis and taken up by Jesus himself: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen 2:24; Mk 10:7-8).

What does this word say to us today? It seems to me that it invites us to be more aware of a reality, already well known but not fully appreciated: that matrimony is a Gospel in itself, a Good News for the world of today, especially the dechristianized world.

The union of a man and a woman, their becoming “one flesh” in charity, in fruitful and indissoluble love, is a sign that speaks of God with a force and an eloquence which in our days has become greater because unfortunately, for various reasons, marriage, in precisely the oldest regions evangelized, is going through a profound crisis. And it is not by chance.

Marriage is linked to faith, but not in a general way. Marriage, as a union of faithful and indissoluble love, is based upon the grace that comes from the triune God, who in Christ loved us with a faithful love, even to the Cross.

Today we ought to grasp the full truth of this statement, in contrast to the painful reality of many marriages which, unhappily, end badly. There is a clear link between the crisis in faith and the crisis in marriage.

And, as the Church has said and witnessed for a long time now, marriage is called to be not only an object but a subject of the new evangelization. This is already being seen in the many experiences of communities and movements, but its realization is also growing in dioceses and parishes, as shown in the recent World Meeting of Families.

One of the important ideas of the renewed impulse that the Second Vatican Council gave to evangelization is that of the universal call to holiness, which in itself concerns all Christians (cf. Lumen Gentium, 39-42).

The saints are the true actors in evangelization in all its expressions. In a special way they are even pioneers and bringers of the new evangelization: with their intercession and the example of lives attentive to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they show the beauty of the Gospel to those who are indifferent or even hostile, and they invite, as it were tepid believers, to live with the joy of faith, hope and charity, to rediscover the taste for the word of God and for the sacraments, especially for the bread of life, the Eucharist.

Holy men and women bloom among the generous missionaries who announce the Good News to non-Christians, in the past in mission countries and now in any place where there are non-Christians. Holiness is not confined by cultural, social, political or religious barriers. Its language, that of love and truth, is understandable to all people of good will and it draws them to Jesus Christ, the inexhaustible source of new life.

At this point, let us pause for a moment to appreciate the two saints who today have been added to the elect number of Doctors of the Church.

Saint Juan de Avila lived in the sixteenth century. A profound expert on the sacred Scriptures, he was gifted with an ardent missionary spirit. He knew how to penetrate in a uniquely profound way the mysteries of the redemption worked by Christ for humanity.

A man of God, he united constant prayer to apostolic action. He dedicated himself to preaching and to the more frequent practice of the sacraments, concentrating his commitment on improving the formation of candidates for the priesthood, of religious and of lay people, with a view to a fruitful reform of the Church.

Saint Hildegard von Bingen, an important female figure of the twelfth century, offered her precious contribution to the growth of the Church of her time, employing the gifts received from God and showing herself to be a woman of brilliant intelligence, deep sensitivity and recognized spiritual authority.

The Lord granted her a prophetic spirit and fervent capacity to discern the signs of the times. Hildegard nurtured an evident love of creation, and was learned in medicine, poetry and music. Above all, she maintained a great and faithful love for Christ and the Church.

This summary of the ideal in Christian life, expressed in the call to holiness, draws us to look with humility at the fragility, even sin, of many Christians, as individuals and communities, which is a great obstacle to evangelization and to recognizing the force of God that, in faith, meets human weakness.

Thus, we cannot speak about the new evangelization without a sincere desire for conversion. The best path to the new evangelization is to let ourselves be reconciled with God and with each other (cf. 2 Cor 5:20).

Solemnly purified, Christians can regain a legitimate pride in their dignity as children of God, created in his image and redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and they can experience his joy in order to share it with everyone, both near and far.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us entrust the work of the Synod meeting to God, sustained by the communion of saints, invoking in particular the intercession of great evangelizers, among whom, with much affection, we ought to number Blessed John Paul II, whose long pontificate was an example of the new evangelization.

Let us place ourselves under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the New Evangelization. With her let us invoke a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that from on high he may illumine the Synodal assembly and make it fruitful for the Church’s way ahead.

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The Holy Father made these brief remarks before leading the Angelus at the end of the Mass:

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Dear brothers and sisters,

Now let us turn in prayer to the Most Blessed Mary, whom we venerate today as Queen of the Holy Rosary.

At this time, in the Shrine to her in Pompeii, the traditional Supplica [Plea] is said, joined by numberless persons around the world. Even as we, too, associate ourselves spiritually to that great communal invocation, I wish to propose to everyone to value the praying of the Rosary during the coming Year of Faith.

Indeed, with the Rosary, we allow ourselves to be guided by Maru, model of faith, in meditating the mysteries of Christ, and day after day, we are helped to assimilate the Gospel so that it gives shape to our whole life.

That is why in the wake of my predecessors, especially of Blessed John Paul II, who ten years ago, gave us the Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, I invite you all to pray the Rosary individually, in the family, and in the community, placing ourselves in the school of Mary, who leads us to Christ, the living center of our faith.

He then proceeded to say greetings to various pilgrim groups in other languages..

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Many if you will have read this by now as it is three days old, but I must post it for the record just because it comes from the pen of Fr. Schall, perhaps the Jesuit I most admire and respect today, after the death of Cardinal Avery Dulles. Neither Dulles nor Schall succumbed to the ultra-liberal herd mentality that has dominated Jesuit actions and initiatives in the past half century by outspokenly heterodox Catholics like those who run Georgetown University (although Fr. Schall was a longtime professor there) or who populate America and Commonweal magazines.

Fr. Schall's essay does get directly to the points that have perplexed non-Papolators like me who do not buy into the media's daily hagiography of the pluperfect Pope. That a prominent Jesuit and respected intellectual like him expresses these perplexities in the way he does makes this essay even more valuable...

The Pope's chat with an atheist
The recent Repubblica interview with Francis touches
on many topics, not always with clarity or precision
by James V. Schall, S.J.

Oct. 4, 2013

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“St. Paul is the one who laid down the cornerstone of our religion and our creed. You cannot be a conscious Christian without St. Paul. He translated the teachings of Christ into a doctrinal structure that, even with the addition of a vast number of thinkers, theologians and pastors has resisted (change?) and still exists after two thousand years. Then there are Augustine, Benedict, and Thomas, and Ignatius. Naturally Francis. Do I need to explain why?”
— Pope Francis, Interview with Eugenio Scalfari
La Repubblica, Rome, October 1, 2013

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I.

Pope Francis seems to be churning out interviews, phone calls, letters, audiences, homilies, and encyclicals—along with official business—faster than most of us can keep track of.

Hardly had the dust settled from discussions on his interview with La Civilta Cattolica than a second interview appeared in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. This second interview was with the founder of the newspaper, Eugenio Scalfari, a well-known philosopher and figure in Rome, one who tells us that he is not a believer, though he was once baptized, made his first communion, and even went on an Ignatian long retreat under the Jesuits.

[With all due respect to Fr. Schall, the entry on Scalfari in Italian Wikipedia describes him as "an Italian journalist, author and politician". A philosopher he certainly is not - a beard does not a philosopher make - even if he may fancy himself one. Moreover, it is exceedingly strange that the Wikipedia entry does not even describe him as an 'intellectual', a pedigree the Italian media attach liberally to anyone who writes often enough and has been doing so long enough on public and academic issues. Scalfari is a man who has imposed himself on the Italian consciousness only because he has had the unlimited use of the magazines and newspapers he has founded to give rein to all his ultra-ssecular and liberal pontifications that he pompously dispenses as though 'ex cathedra', especially since much of it is polemics against the Church and her Popes. Until Francis deigned to send him a four-page letter and incredibly followed it up with an invitation to come to Santa Marta and talk to him! And suddenly, for Scalfari, this Pope is the chevalier sans peur and sans reproche come to rescue the Church at long last from 2000 years of orthodox captivity]

By now, we have seen, read, or listened to the new Pope enough to have gained some perspective on what he is saying. Everyone acknowledges that he has a knack for drawing attention to himself. [Oh Fr. Schall, thank you for articulating that, even if you do it oh-so-tactfully, smoothing out any implied criticism.!]

His criticism of Vatican “clericalism” falls into the “man bites dog” category of newspaper headlines. His style of life and ways of getting around are by now well known—the bus, the inexpensive automobile, the bare room, the dislike of ceremony. We see him constantly reaching out to people; he wants to touch them, talk to them. He seems impatient with the limits of the human condition. We know his economics on poverty, his politics of no war is good, and his unwillingness to judge. He wants everyone to be a missionary and worries that the children in Buenos Aires do not know how to make the Sign of the Cross.

This second interview is a chatty one. It resulted from the Pope responding to a letter from Scalfari. In fact, Francis just called up Scalfari's office and made an appointment for the journalist to visit him in his quarters in the Casa Santa Marta. While the two were not old friends, their conversation was relaxed and frank.

In words that have reverberated around the world, the Pope told Scalfari that the two most “serious” problems in the world are youth unemployment and loneliness of the old. [How's that for original insight! What a ckassic!]

Scalfari tells the Pope that these are really “political, and economic problems for states, governments, political parties, and trade unions.” The social doctrine of the Church has long stressed that it has no competence in these matters.

The Pope admits this but says that we must be concerned with such problems. He adds that there are other problems but these are the “most urgent” ones. But exactly what the Pope’s economic and political theory would be to solve the problems of youth unemployment and old age is never really addressed.

The conversation begins with a jocular exchange about who is “converting” whom. Scalfari suggests he is not convertible. The first thing, in Francis's view, is to get to know one another before any talk of “conversion” might come up. We cannot approve of forced conversions. So they talk of the Good.

In words that sound like Justice Anthony Kennedy [US Supreme Court justice who defined 'conscience' exact;y as contemporary liberals do, i.e., 'whatever I think is right'], the Pope says: “Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must chose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.”

Nothing is mentioned here about contradictory notions of good and evil or those that conceive their good as my evil. We are thus left with a certain vagueness about the implications of this understanding. After all, Hobbes gave pretty much the same description of human nature but thought the absolute state was the only cure.

When asked what this “good” means and whether the Church is doing anything about it, the Pope replies that we are to love our neighbor.

The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill the feeling of brotherhood. All are brothers and all children of God, Abba, as He called the Father. I will show you the way, he said. Follow me and you will find the Father and you will be his children and he will take delight in you. Agape, the love of each one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact the only way that Jesus has given us to find the way of salvation and of the Beatitudes.

Whether it is quite accurate to say that “the Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men,” as the English translation has it, can be wondered about. Christ was one divine person, true God and true Man, body and soul.

We are adopted sons of God. We are to become other Christs, but we do not become divine persons. Actually, the English translation of the Pope’s Italian text should read: “The Son of God was incarnate in order to instill in the souls of men a feeling of brotherhood.” This is much more accurate, though we are not only to have a “feeling” of brotherhood, but are to actually love our brothers. Our persons, souls and bodies, are led through the Incarnation, life, and Cross of Christ to Resurrection and eternal life.

The Pope uses the phrase, the “leprosy of the papacy.” To what does this phrase refer? The Curia? The Pope explains that he is not talking about the Curia. [In another part of the interview he says these are the 'courtiers' that surrounded 'narcissistic' Church leaders. Ouch! Like who? Was John Paul II's extended Polish household 'a court' and were Cardinal Dsiwisz et alia 'courtiers'? And let me just review the Popes in my lifetime. Was any of them narcissistic and thus afflicted with this 'leprosy of the Papacy'? Pius XII (who had only one 'courtier', the devoted Sor Pascalina)? John XXIII? Paul VI? John Paul I? John Paul II? Benedict XVI? Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the Narcissus that I see?

“The Curia is what in an army is called the quartermaster’s office; it manages the services that serve the Holy See. But it has one defect. It is Vatican-centric.” It looks to itself and not outwards. {The Roman Curia could not and never do its work if all it did was look to itself! Its work is intended for the guidance of the universal Church, not the Vatican which does not run the dioceses and parishes and has no direct need for the work product of the Curia.]

Yet, the Church functions. {Not if we listen to the flood of words let loose against the Church under Benedict XVI during the days before and after the March 2013 Conclave! To hear their denunciations at the time - including that of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio - nothing functioned at all in the Church under Benedict XVI, and their proof of it was...ta-da! 'Vatileaks'. How disgraceful and emblematic that all these princes of the Church had taken the word of a simple minded megalomaniacal domestic in Benedict XVI's household as Gospel truth - simply parroting, of course, what the mass media have been telling all and sundry! To them, quite simply, Paolo Gabriele was the most reliable witness of the state of the Church, and Benedict XVI counted for nothing - that is the ultimate implication of their mass betrayal of the saintly Pope who had led them for almost eight years. Yet, miraculously, six months since then, everything now functions???? Or perhaps has always functioned, after all???]

“I would not been able to have complete faith in God and in the Son if I had not been trained in the Church and if I had not had the good fortune of being in Argentina, in a community without which I would not have become aware myself and my faith.” [One wonders how the European Popes before him managed to retain their faith in God and Jesus since none of them had the good fortune to live in Argentina!]

Scalfari asks about the Pope’s experience with communism. Francis tells of a woman he knew who was communist, but he was not attracted to it, especially after he learned of the social doctrine of the Church. The lady was later tortured and killed by the dictators in Argentina. [Was that an answer to the question???? That, as bad as communism may be, military dictatorships are even worse?]

He is asked about liberation theology. He responds simply by saying that many who held it were “believers and with a high concept of humanity.” Of course, almost all modern ideologues have this high concept. The real question is: where does it lead them? [Plus, Francis does not address the fundamental facts that 1) LT, as practised in Latin America, reduced Jesus to a 'Christian Marxist' whose value to LT as a figurehead has nothing to do with his divinity; and 2) that the LT activists actually proposed that the Church had the duty to solve the people's material and social problems, though Francis says elsewhere in the interview that the Church herself cannot engage in politics, even if her members can.]

II.

Scalfari then talks of his own intellectual background. He won a catechetical prize and made the First Friday devotions. But later on, in high school, he read Descartes. The famous phrase, “I think therefore I am,” seemed to convert him. The “I” seemed to free him.

The Pope tells Scalfari that Descartes did not deny the faith. The Pope judges that Scalfari is a “non-believer but not anti-clerical.” [Not anti-clerical? When there have never been more anti-clerical Italian publications as Scalfari's flagships, not even at the time of the Italian Risorgimento when anti-Papal, anti-Church hostility ran highest???]

The Pope adds that he himself is anti-clerical. What the Pope seems to mean by “clerical” is someone who is only interested in the interests of clerics. Thus, he says that St. Paul was not “clerical” because he spoke to “Gentiles, the pagans, and the believers in other religions.” Yet, it was this same St. Paul who “translated the teachings of Christ into a doctrinal structure.” Evidently, to teach doctrine is not clerical. [What a great occasion to underscore the inconsistencies and imprecisions in the Pope's statements! And how very well done!]

[Anti-clericalism is quite clearly defined abd generally understood, in both its explicit aspects as well as its multiple connotations, as "opposition to the clergy for reasons including their actual or alleged power and influence in all aspects of public and political life and their involvement in the everyday life of the citizen, their privileges, or their enforcement of orthodoxy". Perhaps, Argentina has a different definition and connotations for 'anti-clerical".]

The conversation turns to the name and figure of St. Francis. The Pope says that Augustine and Francis are the two figures “closest to his soul.” He naturally also likes Ignatius of Loyola, who was a “reformer and a mystic.” He adds: “A religion without mystics is a philosophy.”

Then, Scalfari asks whether the Pope is a mystic. The Pope doubts that he is. He defines a mystic in this way: “The mystic manages to strip himself of action, of facts, objectives and even the pastoral mission and rises until he reaches communion with Beatitude. Brief moments but which fill an entire life.” [Hmmm. Would PF then consider those iconic mystics Juan de la Cruz and Teresa de Jesus of the Spanish Counter-Reformation, or Hildegarde von Bingen, not mystics at all because they also happened to be very effective executives and reformers of their orders???]

When asked, the Pope admitted that such moments rarely happened to him, though when he was elected, he recalls, he asked for a moment to think. The image of Caravaggio’s painting of the call of St. Matthew came to him. There Christ pointed to the Tax Collector as if to say “Yes, you!” The Pope took this to mean that he should accept the burden of office.

But why is St. Francis great? “He is a man who wants to do everything, wants to build, he founded an order and its rules; he is an iterant and a missionary, a poet, and a prophet; he is mystical. He found evil in himself and rooted it out. He loves nature, animals, the blade of grass on the lawn and the birds flying in the sky. But above all he loved people, children, old people, women. He is a most shining example of agape.”

If we watch him, this description of St. Francis seems to be the model of Pope’s Francis’s own actions. Scalfari wonders why the Pope’s predecessor never chose the name Francis. [Why? Every Pope is free to choose the name he thinks best for him.] Scalfari adds that he thinks after Francis, no one else will choose to be Pope Francis II. [Because he is so unique he must remain the only Pope Francis?] The Pope simply says: “We do not know that.” It is a little bit like asking Benedict XV whether he thought there would be a Benedict XVI.

Francis then speaks of his affection for Augustine, especially the Confessions. The Pope thinks that Augustine saw the Church very differently from Paul. Augustine thought himself to be powerless before the face of God. His soul was “less than it needed to be.” He understood the need of grace in his life.

“Someone who is not touched by grace may be a person without blemish and without fear, as they say, but he will never be a person who has found grace. This is Augustine’s insight.” What perhaps needs to be added is that, with grace, we see things even in reason that we would not otherwise see without it.

Scalfari asks if Francis feels that he is touched by grace. “No one can know that,” the Pope responds. “Grace is not a part of consciousness. It is the amount of light in our souls, not knowledge, not reason.” The Pope then turns to Scalfari to add: “Even you, without knowing it, could be touched by grace.” [Is it possible to be touched by grace and not be aware of it? It is another thing altogether, of course, to boast that one has been touched by grace. Anyone truly 'touched by grace' would also reflect or radiate it without having to say so! Consider Benedict XVI!]

The Holy Spirit acts where He wills. We have to believe that grace is, in some sense, offered to everyone if each of us is to attain the supernatural end for which we are created in the first place. The Pope adds that Scalfari also has a soul.

What about the decline in Church membership? The Pope replies that “being a minority is a strength.”

How does the Pope look at Vatican II? “Vatican II decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council Fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non-believers. But afterwards very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something.” [Exhibit #1 of the disturbing Pharisee in Pope Francis who can be so 'mindlessly' critical = and wrongly - of his predecessors, all but beating his breast and saying, "Thank God I am not as they were!"]

Evidently, this summary is what the Pope thinks of the reigns of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, both of whom were aware that modern culture was not neutral so that conforming to it, in its philosophical premises, often meant rejecting the faith.

The Pope is very strong on the Second Great Commandment. But he thinks there is too much selfishness, though he does not mention the problem of Original Sin in everyone. The Pope says that he is “Bishop of Rome and the Pope of the Catholic world,” but he is not Francis of Assisi.

How does he address politics? “Political institutions are secular by definition and operate in independent spheres…. I believe that Catholics involved in politics carry the values of their religion within them but have the mature awareness and expertise to implement them. The Church will never go beyond its task of expressing and disseminating its values, at least as long as I am here.” [I wonder if the Pope ever reflected on the Greek concept of hubris!]

One might wonder how the Pope reconciles this statement with the active and noble part he himself took in protecting people from the Argentine dictators.

III.

The Pope then decides to put Scalfari on the spot. He wants to know what the atheist interviewer actually believes. He does not want any vague answer like common good or honesty. As a self-confessed “secular non-believer,” what does he hold? Everyone must ask who he is, where we come from, and where are we going.

Scalfari explains: “I believe in Being, that is in the tissues from which forms, bodies arise.” [That's an explanation? Surely, even a sophomore studying Introduction to Philosophy could be more cogent than that. Tissues? What tissues? And where did those tissues come from, which give rise to forms and bodies? Cuckoo genesis! Did the Pope challenge that absurd statement at all???]

In contrast, Francis expresses what he believes: “I believe in God, not in a Catholic God, there is no Catholic God, there is God and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation. Jesus is my teacher and my pastor, but God the Father, Abba, is the light and the Creator. This is my Being. Do you think we are very far apart?”

One has to assume that not all explanations of God are equally valid. The Pope does not state the specific relation of Jesus Christ to the Father, only that He is his the Pope’s teacher and pastor. It is because Christ is the Word of the Father that he can be our teacher and pastor.

Scalfari next gives a rather odd explanation of what he means by Being. It is nothing like that of St. Thomas. “Being is a fabric of energy. Chaotic but indestructible energy and eternal chaos. Forms emerge from that energy when it reaches the point of exploding. The forms have their own laws, their magnetic fields, their chemical elements, which combine randomly.” [Ah, so it is not 'tissues' at all from which 'being arises', but 'energy'! His frame of reference shifts from biology to physics. Scalfari attempts pitifully to paraphrase the state of physics as we knew it a century ago, and throws in the word 'chaos' to be current. Sounds to me like someone tentatively whistling an unfamiliar tune in the dark! Benedict XVI once referred to contemporary chaos theory in straightforward lay terms when he answered a college student's question about reconciling scientific knowledge with the faith.]

Scalfari adds that man is alone in this solar system at least. Man has thought but “also contains within himself a resonance, an echo, a vocation of chaos.” One is tempted to call this gibberish [There you are!]. but the Pope simply repeats what he in turn thinks of God as light. In other words, if there is chaos, it has an order.

Scalfari really does not explain where reason or order comes from. If it deals only with “chaos” just why an act can be called “reasonable” or “rational” is not clear. [Oh my God! If there is one thing this interview has shown, it is to unmask the sad truth that Scalfari, 'the secular Pope', is really clad in intellectual tatters! And the dialog here sounds like two people trying to one-up the other even if both are playing with insufficient cards! That Scalfari 'reconstructed' the interview all by himself, 'after the fact', as Fr. Lombardi insists, reveals his intellectual inadequacy even more, since he apparently does not realize that to people who know something of physics and biology, philosophy and metaphysics, he has indeed spouted quite a load of gibberish!]

Scalfari thinks that the Pope’s explanation of light in our souls is “more an image of imminence[immanence???] than of transcendence.” [More gibberish!] Basically, the Pope responds that the light has to come from somewhere. Nothing can come from nothing.

The Pope judges that the discussion with Scalfari has been useful. They have found points of agreement; they agree that there is not enough love and men of good will must deal with these things. The Pope thinks an “unrestricted liberalism” only enables the strong to become stronger and the weak weaker.

Francis has utopian streaks in him also: “We need great freedom, no discrimination, no demagoguery and a lot of love.” The Pope’s friend, St. Augustine, spent a lot of time telling us that these are noble aspirations — but not to expect them in this life.

The Pope shows his political hand: “We need rules of conduct and also, if necessary, direct intervention from the state to correct the more intolerable inequalities.” He does not touch on the more modern and common problem when of the state itself causing these problems.

Finally, they discuss the books and movies that the Pope mentioned he liked in the Civilta Cattolica interview. Francis said that he went to these films because his parents took him. Scalfari recommends two new films to him, 'Viva la Liberta' and a movie on Fellini.

Finally, Scalfari tells the Pope about his having made the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, but under duress to escape prison. The conversation ends. The Pope accompanies Scalfari to the door and expresses hope that they can continue their conversation; they still have to talk about women and Pascal. The Pope sends his blessing to Scafari’s family and asks their prayers for him.

Scafari’s final words are these: “This is Pope Francis. If the Church becomes like him and becomes what he wants, it will be an epochal change.”

One might say that if the world is really the chaotic “Being” that Scalfari thinks that it is, the Church and everything else is all chaos anyhow. “The Light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not” (Jn 12:5)— we can leave it at that.

Obviously, I do not look forward to any further Bergoglio-Scalfari chats, which some observers think will be repeated often enough to be collected together in a book, and which, in my opinion, would represent nothing more than a smugg self-exposition of two egos. .. Without meaning any disrespect to the Pope, I truly think that the books on Adolf Hitler's 'table talk' (1941-1944) were far more interesting and informative - they did concern World War II and his illusions of the Thousand-Year Reich - than anything the Pope might come up with Scalfari. At least, with Hitler, we knew it was a psycopathic mind.

Meanwhile, here's a practical fallout resulting from the many and continuing perplexities about statements made by 'the chatterbox Pope' as Damian Thompson has called PF.

Inaugurating PopeWatch:
Fr. Lombardi explains it all
by Donald R. McClarey

October 6, 2013

Announcing a new series at The American Catholic: PopeWatch. I think it is obvious that Pope Francis will be making the headlines on a regular basis, and I will be commenting on him fairly frequently as a result, hence the new series.

First up, a statement by papal press spokesman Father Federico Lombardi. I have a soft spot in my heart for press flacks. They have tough jobs, especially in the wake of feathers hitting a fan. Then they come out to meet the media, and often have to say the most absurd things with a straight face, and it would take a heart of purest granite not to feel some sympathy for them at such times. In the wake of Pope Francis’ colorful interviews, Father Lombardi explained what the problem is:

---

[Perhaps the most insightful take on all this came from] Lombardi himself (who) said "we’re seeing the emergence of a whole new genre of papal speech — informal, spontaneous and sometimes entrusted to others in terms of its final articulation".

A new genre, Lombardi suggested, needs a “new hermeneutic,” one in which we don’t attach value so much to individual words as to the overall sense.

“This isn’t Denzinger,” he said, referring to the famous German collection of official church teaching, “and it’s not canon law.”

“What the pope is doing is giving pastoral reflections that haven’t been reviewed beforehand word-for-word by 20 theologians in order to be precise about everything,” Lombardi said. [Excuse me, Fr. Lombardi, Benedict XVI gave a number of extemporaneous statements during his Pontificate, responding to First Communicants, university students, troubled young people, priests (how many there were!), representatives of families and married couples, not to mention the 21 inflight interviews before each papal trip abroad - without ever getting into any flap other than that caused by deliberate mis-statement of what he actually said (on condoms and excommunication of bishops who support Mexico's abortion laws).]

“It has to be distinguished from an encyclical, for instance, or a post-synodal apostolic exhortation, which are magisterial documents.”

---

Well, okay then. The Pope gives interviews that he knows will be blasted around the world and make headlines, but we Catholics are not to pay attention to the individual words but rather to the overall sense. How we are to arrive at the overall sense without paying attention to the individual worlds is a mystery the solution of which Father Lombardi did not deign to reveal.

If I might suggest a solution? When Pope Francis is speaking, Father Lombardi should be present with two signs. One should say “Attention”, and that should be held up when Pope Francis is saying something that we should take seriously. At other times Father Lombardi should hold up a sign reading “Never Mind”. [And yet, a Pope cannot and ought not to say anything, formally or informally, whatever the context, that will sow confusion in any way! Unless, of course, you are Pope Francis who is in a class all by himself and is not bound by any 'rules' that apply to other Popes who are all 'fuori classe', to turn around an Italian phrase usually referred to anyone or anything sui generis, but in this case, to refer to all other Popes who are hopelessly, irrevocably no even worthy to be compared to PF.

As for the caveats that Fr. Lombardi seems to make about PF's 'informal' statements, has he stopped to consider that no other papal spokesman before him ever had to do this? That he never had to do it for Benedict XVI.

And I don't think the difference lies in the fact that B16 is a theologian with a pastor's heart and therefore more acutely aware that he cannot afford to say anything that will cause confusion among the faithful. It has to do with systematic thinking that expresses itself automatically in clear, linear language [You can say things clearly only if you think clearly], and of simple prudence, which is the wisdom - and the responsibility as Pope - not to make statements about matters that one does not completely master, or about which one's thoughts are not fully organized.

With PF, who can be very direct, clear and effective about his core convictions - one knows now, after two or three repetitions in various venues that, among other things:

1) He considers conscience as a subjective individual judgment (in this, the pluperfect Pope is also the pluperfect liberal, a built-in contradiction, but then those that consider him to be the pluperfect Pope are all liberals, someone therefore built to their own image), so whatever happened then to the 'formed conscience' that a Catholic ought to have? And why isn't this supreme expression of relativism not raising more objections in the Catholic world?

2) Do not expect him to speak out against abortion, contraception, euthanasia, same-sex unions and the like because he thinks Catholic teaching on these matters turns off anyone who might be interested in returning to the Church or joining up. He wants the bishops to fight these battles on their own local turfs, after he has handicapped them immeasurably by telling the world, "Forget about these issues. Just come meet Jesus in my Church. Jesus loves you. He has infinite mercy. If you follow your conscience, he will forgive you". Have I misrepresented what he has been saying all these months? What does the bishop answer when a parishioner says, "But I can have serial abortions if I want to. I am following my conscience, and my conscience says abortion is no sin. And even if it were, Pope Francis says that if I follow my conscience, Jesus will forgive me!"

Andrea Gagliarducci is definitely one Vaticanista who is not in lockstep with the herd about the Pontificate of Pope Francis so far, and here he offers some reflections that may seem pretty extreme especially because they are idiosyncratic (particular to him alone, at lewast so far) and rather original. But they are certainly worth considering...

The informal Papacy and the risk
it means for institutionality
by ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI

Oct. 6, 2013

Pope Francis has underscored in Assisi his idea of «a poor Church for poor.» It is part of the «reform of attitudes» that Pope Francis considers more important than the Curia reform, i.e. a reform of the organizational structure. [And about which, let us not forget, Benedict XVI was always most emphatic about. Any reforms in the Church must begin with reform of the individuals who run the Church - and he meant not just the Curia but also all bishops and priests.]

During this week, a certain lack of institutionality has been felt. At first sight, there is a sort of «divided» Church. The Pope is divorced from the institution he represents. The Curia’s control room is separated from those who want to control it. [????What is the 'the Curia's control room, and who want to control it - the Council of 8?] Even communications are «fragmented», with the Holy See Press Office seemingly ever more sidelined, while media advisors [what media advisors?] appear to direct Pope Francis in a disconcerting manner.

These are the risks of an informal Papacy. In a sense, Pope Francis is someone who is used to live and continues to live as if under a dictatorship. During the military dictatorship in Argentina, he stood out for his heroism, a fact that made him some enemies who have later insinuated he was in connivance with the Argentine military regime. These are rumors that time and again have proven to be completely baseless.

Living in the Vatican, Pope Francis seems to be sticking to the same forma mentis of the times he lived under a dictatorship. He is very suspicious toward the Curia (which he defined in a recent interview as «a plague») [But he has also affirmed at other times that he has found many 'good good good men in the Curia' who are with him]; he trusts only his friends [Who are they, other than those in Argentina? And, one must presume, the cardinals in the Group of 8]]; he decided to live in the Domus Sanctae Marthae because he can be seen by all, minimizing the risk to fall victim to malicious gossiping. Since the Pope is there, visible, it should be more difficult for some to spread rumors about his way of proceeding, or about “corruption” in the Pontifical family. [That is as spurious as any of the usual rationalizations that not living in the papal apartment 'insulates' him from any untoward pressures] To be on the safe side, Pope Francis manages his own agenda, as he always did in Argentina, since the time of the dictatorship there. [I believe Gagliarducci uses the term 'agenda' here in the Italian sense, namely, his daily schedule, rather than his official 'to-do' tasks.]

But Argentine was ruled by a military regime, while the Pope is himself the regime in the Vatican. Thus, the Pope should govern, organize, delegate. In order to govern most appropriately, he must also use the Curia. A Vatican saying reminds all, very timely, that «you cannot reform the Curia without the Curia.»

There is another, not less important, problem: the Pope’s vision of the Curia corresponds and feeds the image of the Curia portrayed by the media: a nest of plots, corruption, and wrongdoings. Unintentionally, Pope Francis risks giving impetus to an old media campaign against the Church. [Not just him, but all the cardinals who took part in the pre-Conclave congregations and the Conclave itself, and constantly alluded to with every mention of reform. I must point out again that it seemed very strange - and unpardonable - to me at the time that not one of the cardinals, not even Benedict XVI's closest personal friends among them, ever spoke out against the wholesale maligning of his Curia that took place then! As if, just because he was no longer Pope, it did not matter what was said about him.].

Yet another consequence is that the 'curiali' who are 'as shrewd as snakes but not peaceful as doves' [Who said that? Gagliarducci must not assume we are all familiar with Vatican lore! Bu 'curiali', I take it he means the bureaucrats who do run the administrative machinery of the Curia], have more space to act. [HOW???]

The persistent call of the Pope to stop the gossiping sort of «terrorizes» the Curia. This kind of feeling parodoxically inhibits those who act honestly, and favors those who have always shrewdly pushed for their personal agendas.[???? 1) Short of actually throwing gossipers into jail, no papal exhortation will terrorize gossipers, much less stop gossip. 2) How does 'terrorizing'the gossipers "inhibit those who act honestly and favor those who have always pushed their personal agendas?" Non sequitur!]

While waiting for Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State Elect, to take officially his post on Oct. 15, many in the Curia are busy trying to strengthen their own influence, regardless of what the Pope may wish. One particular field for these «hidden battles «» is that of the «financial management» of the Holy See.

The commission appointed by Pope Francis to supervise Vatican finances has seen its share of scandals. They revolve around one of its members, Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui.

Chaouqui was very critical of Benedict XVI’s Curia. She also accused Cardinal Bertone of corruption, in a tweet. She supported Ettore Gotti Tedeschi when he confronted (unsuccessfully) a no-confidence vote from the Institute of Religious Works (IOR) board of laymen, and is reportedly one of the aggressive sources of the gossip Italian web portal Dagospia. Chaouqui has also been considered one of the Vatican’s «crows,» i.e. one of those responsible for the leaks of reserved documents from the Apostolic Palace.

Chaouqui is a public relations expert, and it is rumored that she was the «mastermind» of the financial tycoon Alessandro Proto’s media campaign. Proto gained prominence when it was reported that he was about to raid the stocks of important companies in Italy. His fame increased when he personally denounced –with harsh press releases and lawsuits– characterizations that he was a financial raider. Later, it became known that Proto himself (on Chaouqui’s suggestion?) leaked news about his financial raids in order to give rise to opportunities to reply to his critics and grab newspapers headlines.

The «Proto approach» could find traction in the Vatican, where the season of poisons has already begun. [The following paragraphs about Cardinal Nicora are Gagliarducci's deductions, not necessarily fact.]

Cardinal Attilio Nicora, president of the Authority for Financial Information, is very active. He agreed to changes to the Vatican anti-money laundering law only because the Council of Europe asked for the modifications [As if Nicora could fail to accept what Benedict XVI agreed to!], and because they led to a generally positive evaluation by the Council of Europe committee of MONEYVAL. [Gagliarducci has the chronology wrong. The criticism came in the report that was a generally positive evaluation by Moneyval.]

In fact, the old law made Nicora a sort of man of the compromise, the mediator between the Vatican and Italy. [????] The new law (further revised in January and then on Aug. 8) strengthened the Holy See’s sovereignty and increased its international weight.

The Holy See [BENEDICT XVI, specifically] chose to favor a model of transparency based on international recognition, rather than a special relationship with a nearby State. The first anti-money laundering law, a sort of «good neighbor pact» between the Vatican and Italy, could in fact put the sovereignty of the Holy See at risk.

The MONEYVAL report mentioned just one conflict of interests: that of Nicora, at the time president of the Authority for Financial Information (a controller), president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, APSA (a controlled agency) and member of the IOR cardinals’ commission. [A 'conflict of interest' for which, in fairness, he was not responsible. For good reason, and because he trusts him, Benedict XVI had named him head of the new AIF, and corrected the 'conflict' as soon as Moneyval pointed it out.]

He had to leave the presidency of APSA. When Benedict XVI – having already announced his renunciation – renewed the mandate of the members of the cardinals’ commission, he appointed Domenico Calcagno as Nicora’s successor at the APSA, and as Nicora’s replacement in the commission.

An APSA led by Calcagno is still in fact an APSA led by Nicora. [Is this statement not a gross disrespect for Cardinal Calcagno? And how do we know that it is so?] The scandal of Nunzio Scarano, the APSA employee who was not dismissed even after the numerous complaints about his performance throughout the years (complaints that had been forwarded to Nicora), is a direct result of Nicora’s personalist management style. [If Nicora did, in fact, tolerate Scarano and ignored complaints made aout him, then he must be denounced, rightfully, But in all the media coverage I've seen, this is the first time I have come across anyone laying the blame for the Scarano mess directly at Nicora's door - and there would have been no lack of any such denunciations if this were true, i.e. more nails that his detractors could drive into Benedict's Cross.]

The Scarano affair had other ramifications. Massimo Boarotto, president of the Ordinary section of the APSA, who blocked the rising of Scarano, is back to Verona as parish priest. [When did this happen? Under Benedict XVI? And who was responsible for this? Nicora or Calcagno?] He was replaced by Don Mauro Rivella, a Canon law expert (he is part of the scientific committee of the Rivista di Diritto Ecclesiastico, headed by Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts) and part of Nicora’s circle. Rumors say that this is why Nicora backed his candidature for the APSA ordinary section post, even though the Italian Bishops’ Conference – in which central secretariat Rivella served for some years – decided that Rivella’s service in the “central government” of the conference had come to an end, and sent him back to his dioceses, Turin. [This is all internal politics, but perhaps Cardinal Nicora should respond to these allegations - and promptly. I care, because if his actions at APSA undermined Benedict XVI's own policy of financial transparency in any way, or his injunctions against careerism, then Nicora has grossly betrayed Benedict XVI's trust and friendship, one that goes back for decades.]

In the meantime, the IOR (the Institute for Religious Works), which had been constantly under attack, issued an annual report on its 2012 activities, even though the cardinals’ commission of the IOR has not issued its conclusions yet. [The cardinals’ commission is waiting for the appointment of the IOR general director (von Freyberg took the post over ad interim, after the resignation of the former general director Paolo Cipriani) before issuing its conclusions. A meeting with the Pope is anyway expected for the next week. ]

Von Freyberg promised the publication of the annual report in a May, 30 interview granted to Vatican radio. There are several risks that one should take into consideration. The first: doing what the media expect the IOR to do makes the IOR subservient to the media, as if it would have to justify everything it does. [Not so! Financial institutions do issue annual reports routinely for the public - why shouldn't IOR? Besides, it was Von Freyberg who volunteered this initiative. No one told him to.]

Secondly, if the IOR would do everything a bank does, it would fail. From the very beginning, there has been a debate about its very nature: is it a bank or is it not? The Vatican always had to explain that the IOR is not a bank, but a financial institution. [Gagliarducci is more muddling than clarificatory. The IOR is a financial institution that accepts client deposits and invests them, as banks do, but it does not perform any other banking function.]s

Beyond the numbers and the “philosophical” problems about its nature, the IOR annual report states that the last modification on the anti-money laundering law (into effect via a Motu Proprio issued in Aug. 8) has been accelerated by Pope Francis. This is at the least inaccurate. Vatican experts have been working for about one year [more than a year - since the Moneyval report in July 2012] to tailor the laws of the Vatican in order to create a Vatican model of financial transparency.

Ultimately, there is a sort of “publicity craze” that affects almost everybody in the Vatican.

This craze can be augmented by Pope Francis’s behavior, who calls anybody he wants whenever he wants, and often speaks off the cuff. There had been much said about an interview he granted to Eugenio Scalfari, founder of the prominent Italian newspaper La Repubblica. The interview (mostly an ongoing conversation) is not a premiere. As long back as 1959, John XXIII asked his secretary to call the Corriere della Sera to say he was ready for an interview, which he granted to the famous Italian journalist Indro Montanelli.

Scalfari’s free-flowing conversation with Pope Francis was reported by the journalist in such a general manner, that there are still questions about whether the Pope’s words can be quoted as official positions or not.

The Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, took the decision to report the interview in its entirety, making the Pope’s words sort of official. The Osservatore Romano’s independent decision (not the first one) de facto cut off the Holy See Press Office from any communications strategy. Father Lombardi had no choice but to point out that the content of the interview may be faithful to the Pope’s words, since the Pope did not complain about it, but that he could not confirm they were his exact words. [That the Pope did not complain about it - Scalfari's account of their conversation - and that the OR promptly reproduced it in full- do make the situation all the more problematic!]

This is the Vatican today. A Vatican always more prone to outsourcing, while the central institutions are pushed away in a sort of war against Rome. The cardinals of the commission Pope Francis appointed to reform the Curia seem to want to push the Curia away, rather than reform it.

They are thinking about re-writing the Pastoral Constitution Pastor Bonus, but all the proposals that came out from their first meeting (the Secretary of State must be a Secretary of the Pope; more space for laymen; a moderator curiae, which mean a sort of director of personnel) are already in Pastor Bonus. The local Churches have taken over and want to push any central institution aside. [A conclusion that may perhaps be premature but seems to be the inevitable consequence of the 'collegiality' envisioned - but still undefined - by the cardinals in the Council of 8 and one endorsed by the Pope, who nonetheless does not fail to underscore but not in the same context, that all decisions are ultimately his alone. No one - not the Group of 8 nor the Pope - bothers to point out that the 'collegiality' endorsed by Vatican II always came coupled with the words 'in communion with the Successor of Peter', not 'the Successor of Peter in communion with the bishops'. Because post-Vatican II, many dioceses, especially those led by liberal bishops, have constituted themselves into mini-Vaticans with the local bishop arrogating unto himself the institutional guidance of the Pope for the universal Church, and seeing fit to ignore or countermand the Pope on matters that he disagrees with. Going by its official documents - and the interpretation of the post-Conciliar Popes from Paul VI to Benedict XVI - that is most definitely what Vatican II did not envision.]

In the Curia, in the dioceses, in the parishes, there are good Catholics, in love with their missions and doing a great job. But in the Vatican it seems now that what people outside the Church think is more important than what people inside the Church think. [That's a novel insight, but one that would seem obvious given the major role that the media has played in shaping the public perception of this Pontificate, and the smugness with which those in the Church who share the media image of the pluperfect Pope rejoice in this perception, without considering the reality behind the perception.] The Vatican turns to VIPs to promote what it does, and never thinks about valuing the high professionals it already has.

While the Holy See Press Office works to explain this Papacy, the Pope grabs the newspaper headlines with initiatives that the Holy See Press Office simply is not made aware of. While the Vatican Secretariat of State keeps on doing its job, it is also challenged by sudden Papal decisions, taken without any coordination.

This kind of anarchy is not something new in the history of the Church. The issue is that the institution previously managed this anarchy. Now, the institution itself feeds the anarchy. [[A pretty strong affirmation, for which there are many signs, but we shall see how the Pope's vision for the Church works out. Every reformer must ultimately keep in mind that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that the very devil is in the details.]

The informal Vatican of the Pope, a Pope in an “under a dictatorship” permanent mindset, risks giving credence to the view of those who think that the Church is only a “confluence” of strong interests. The goal of the latter is to dismantle the Church. Will the informal Vatican help them to succeed?

While I was away from the Forum recently, Gagliarducci wrote an even more 'original' commentary on how, with Pope Francis, Cardinal Sodano is back in the thick of developments. I shall post it here for the record when I find it...Meanwhile, here's a thoughtful piece that questions the facile assumptions of those liberals who choose to interpret everything Pope Francis does as a victory for their side and a further putdown of the Church they loved to hate but which they now consider to be changing under Pope Ferancis into what they want it to be .


There is no ‘democratic revolution’ in the Vatican
Talk of a ‘Vatican Spring’ misunderstands how the Church works
By FR ALEXANDER LUCIE-SMITH

Oct. 7, 2013

Paul Vallely has written an article for the Independent which requires a response. [Vallely is the English journalist who took the time to research Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina after March 13, 2013, and came out with the first 'biography' of the new Pope that is not an insta-book based on previously known (and extremely limited) material. The book was generally considered 'fair and objective' by its reviewers - i.e., it was not hagiographic - but Father Z, who read the book, had quite strenuous objections because of Vallely's obvous political agenda in writing the book. His objections would appear to be borne out by the Vallely article referred to here.]

First of all, the headline, which Mr Vallely did not write, but was written by someone working for the paper. ‘Vatican Spring’ suggests that the reform of the Roman Curia is akin to the overthrow of the tyrants who until recently held sway in the Middle East.

Now, I myself have said that the Roman Curia is not fit for purpose, and needs reform: but this snide comparison between the Curia officials and, let us say, President Mubarak, is going a bit far. Not only does it malign some perfectly respectable people, it also belittles the sacrifices made by those who rebelled in the Middle East. The Vatican Spring/Arab Spring echo represents a cheap journalistic trick.

The tone of the article is unfortunate: take this quotation, which suggests that the Pope holds prayer, indeed the most ancient of Christian prayers, in contempt: The local archbishop asked the Pope to say the Lord’s Prayer there, as St Francis had done eight centuries before. “The Our Father?” the Pope replied. “But I want to talk about what the Church today needs to strip away to emulate the gesture Francis made.”Here you have the perfectly false dichotomy, which the Pope certainly has never intended, between prayer and action. The Pope knows, as do we all, that the more one prays, the more one will change oneself and the world; but the mindset of the Independent seems to be that prayer is an excuse for inaction. [That's all very well. But did the Pope really dismiss the 'Our Father' in the egocentric way suggested? That seems to me more crucial than thinking in any way that he has contempt for prayer! Even allowing for the occasion on which he allegedly said it, the reaction was hardly what one expects from a Pope. So, must research the original source for the citation.]

There is more. We are told that the Pope has embraced living more simply “by shunning his gold-leafed papal palace for the spartan quarters of a Vatican guest house.” If only the readers could see the interior of the Casa Santa Marta, as I have, with all its marble and mahogany! It is anything but Spartan.

As for the Papal Apartment, true that is on a grand scale, but it is hardly cosy or comfortable. Moreover, the Pope does not shun it, but goes there every day to work. The Pope, meanwhile, has himself said that he has chosen to live in Santa Marta because he likes to be surrrounded by people, not because it is austere. It isn’t.

Mr Vallely’s personal agenda comes out in this paragraph:

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They [the Pope and his advisers] now need to create mechanisms to ensure their changes cannot be overturned by some conservative successor. The Pope and his new advisers should start by allowing bishops to oversee the selection of Vatican officials and to give lay Catholics a voice in the appointment of bishops. They should scrap the rule which says that top Curia officials should be priests, bringing in lay administrators, including women. They should restore the notion of subsidiarity – the concept that decisions should be taken as low down as possible – to conferences of bishops, diocesan councils and parish councils. [A gross mis-application of subsidiarity, which does not apply to doctrine and rules for the universal Church!] Men who left the priesthood to marry should be allowed to return, on a par with Anglican clerics who crossed to Rome. They should rehabilitate theologians, priests and nuns silenced by the Vatican under the previous two pontificates. They should usher in a democratic revolution in the Church.

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This sounds very nice [and also a re-statement of the Catholic dissidents' laundry list of reforms which we have heard and read ad nauseam in the past 50 years], but how is it to work out in practice?

One notices that along with a call for greater democracy, Mr Vallely wants future “conservative” popes to be bound by what the present generation sets up. How very undemocratic! Are future generations to have no say?

Mr Vallely’s main idea seems to be a move away from the Roman Curia as an organ of government towards a diffused power structure vested in Bishops’ Conferences. But someone has to oversee the Bishops’ Conferences (some of which do not inspire much confidence, let it be frankly said), just as someone has to oversee the religious orders (the untrustworthiness of some of which is sadly well known and beyond dispute); who, if not the Vatican? [The liberal assumption is that any cleric who does not work in the Vatican must necessarily be a model human being and incapable of wrongdoing, since any cleric who works at the Vatican must necessarily be suspect if not responsible for all that they consider wrong or objectionable about the Church!]

And is not this system the system we already have? Does the Roman Curia micromanage everything that goes on in the Catholic world? [Yet, the eminent cardinals would like to give the world that impression. It's a deliberate misrepresentation to reinforce their negative judgments and prejudices about the Roman Curia, and it is a disgustingly dishonest one. How can 2,500 persons - the entire Curial population of the Vatican - possibly micromanage the pastoral ministry to 1.2 billion Catholics? The Curial offices translate through appropriate instructions sent to all the bishops of the world what the Pope as head of the universal Church decrees for the whole Church, and which the local Churches, under their respective bishops, are dutybound to execute. Some Curial offices also have the duty to supervise how the bishops and priests (and religious orders and educational institutions) are executing these instructions.]

To some rather paranoid Catholics, this might seem the case. After all, Rome has silenced dissident theologians, hasn’t it? Hans Küng might be one whom Mr Vallely has in mind, and I can think of others without mentioning names. ‘Silencing’ is an odd term to use of someone as loquacious as Dr Küng. But the idea that the Vatican and its minions go around silencing people is really something out of the playbook of the Protestant Truth Society, the stuff of the Black Legend. [The very fact that everyone and his grandmother has been utterly free all these past five decades to say anything they wish to say against the Church and the Pope seems not to count at all with the critics who have none of them been silenced or were ever the object of 'silencing' attempts by the Vatican! If anything, the Vatican has always simply turned the other cheek to be slapped and abused.]

Amidst the other details of the Vallely programme is the reinstatement of priests who have left the priesthood to marry; he does not demand an automatic right of return for all who have left, only for some, and only after some form of scrutiny, it is implied. But what he is advocating is the creation of a married priesthood, implying that this is what we already have, thanks to our Anglican convert clergy.

But a married vicar seeking ordination as a Catholic priest and a Catholic priest who marries after taking a promise not to – these are two clearly different things. Mr Vallely’s idea of a return of formerly active priests represents a Trojan Horse, a way of changing the Catholic Church profoundly. The priests who left to marry chose to leave: they have to live with the choice they made. We all have to live with our choices, don’t we?

Finally, talk of a democratic revolution in the Church is careless talk. Revolutions tend to be destructive, and end up ushering in less, not more, democracy. [They are also usually followed by a Reign of Terror!] I suppose Calvinism, with its elaborate system of lay control over the Church sounds democratic, but Calvin’s Geneva was anything but free and easy.

Most Catholics – I am guessing here – like myself, do not find the atmosphere inside the Catholic Church repressive. The idea of more democracy might sound attractive, but whatever democratic structures were set up, they would soon be dominated, one fears, by shrill and strident activists. The idea of a Church run by Hans Küng and people like him seems to me the stuff of nightmares. [Which we already have, thanks to dissidents like /We are Church'! Or have they too been converted by the Francis effect?]

Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2013, 27th Week in Ordinary Time

ST. GIOVANNI LEONARDI (Italy, 1541-1609), Priest and Founder of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God
He was a pharmacist in the Tuscan city-state of Lucca when working with victims of a plague led him to become a priest. He was ordained in 1572 at the peak of the Counter-Reformation and after the Council of Trent. He founded a Confraternity for Christian Doctrine to teach correct doctrine to the young, and published a compendium of Christian doctrine which was widely used in Italy till the 19th century. He also propagated devotion to the Eucharist, to Eucharistic Adoration and to the Blessed Virgin. He and other priests who were attracted to his work started thinking of a new congregation for diocesan priests. Their ideas were rejected by Lucca authorities who did not favor the new Protestantism, but also thought Leonardi and company were against reforming the Church. Eventually exiled from Lucca, he ended up in Rome where he became friends with the future St. Philip Neri. In 1583, he founded the order of Clerks Regular of the Mother of God, which was approved by Pope Clement VIII in 1595, who also appointed him to reform the Benedictine monks in two Italian monasteries. He died in Rome during an influenza epidemic when he was helping take care of the sick. He was canonized in 1938.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100813.cfm

AT THE VATICAN TODAY
No events announced for the Pope (it's Tuesday). But the Vatican announced that Pope Francis has called
the Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which will held at the Vatican
from October 5 to October 19, 2014. Fr. Lombardi saw fit to accompany the announcement with this declaration (translated from the Vatican bulletin):

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The convocation of an extraordinary Synodal Assembly on the theme of pastoral ministry to families is very important.

This is the way in which the Pope intends to move ahead with the refelction and path of the Church community, with the responsibloe participation of the bishops from the various parts of the world.

It is right that the Church moves in a communitarian way in reflection and prayer and takes common pastoral orientations on the most important matters - such as pastoral ministry to families - under the guidance of the Pope and bishops. Calling this Extraordinary Synodal Assembly clearly shows this path.

In this particular context, pastoral solutions taken by individuals and local offices have risked generating confusion. It is well to highlight the importance of following the path of full communion within the ecclesial community.

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WHOA! Is this declaration meant as a signal to the participants of the Synodal Assembly that they may choose to redefine Church teaching on marriage and the family, in the light of the all-out secular espousal of gender theory, same-sex 'marriage' and abolishing the idea of 'mother' and 'father' in favor of 'Parent A' and 'Parent B'?
- Is this the Pope's way of putting the burden on the bishops for any 'liberalization' about marriage and the family that he may favor, but that, as Pope, he cannot articulate for now?
- Will the bishops and cardinals named to take part in the assembly be chosen for their 'open' positions on what Benedict XVI always considered 'non-negotiable principles? (Participants are chosen in part by local bishops' conferences, and in part by the Pope. Too bad we have to wait several months before we get any idea of the participants' names.) Still, think of the high-fiving that must be going on in many episcopal conferences at the very announcdement of this assembly!
- Will there be enough conservative names on the list to act as a counterweight to the liberals in the crucial votes?
- Finally, is this the 'collegial' democratic revolution whereby any majority decision taken by the assembly would then 'compel' the Pope, in the name of collegiality, to endorse it even if it may be contrary to 2000 years of Catholic teaching and practice? [The bishops are supposed to be in communion with the Successor of Peter, not the other way around!]
- Or does he intend to let the bishops have their say and then invoke his sovereign prerogative as Pope to strike down any decision that may fall outside the 'deposit of faith' that as Successor of Peter, he is sworn to uphold?

Too early to make any conclusions, obviously but the mind boggles at the possibilities and prospects! After all, what issues about the Catholic family - other than the thorny liberal causes cited above (oh, plus leniency for remarried Catholic divorcees) - remain to be resolved after seven World Encounters for Families, and which require a Synod to decide?

For all we know, the CDF has already been asked to start marshalling all the theological, historical and cultural considerations that would justify any changes to current Catholic teaching and practices abougt the family. They have a year to do it. More than ever, let us pray daily for the Church and for this Pope.]